The Unfinished Business Of You And Me
by greenstuff2
Summary: It began with a Brigadier's Garden Party in Farnham and faces from the past ...
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: All rights belong to TG and the BBC

"Is it gonna be a late one, Molls?"

"Nah, don't worry mum, I'll most likely stop at Ron's, apart from anything else it'll save her having to drop me home after we've unloaded everything"

"Okay, well have a good one then"

"I'll try"

Molly Dawes, mature student and occasional casual waitress, grabbed her bag, checked that she had her cheap imitation Doc Martin type shoes, the ones she'd bought in the market because much as she'd had preferred 'killer heels' to give her some height, these were the only type of footwear that didn't leave her feet burning with pain after a long slog. She checked that she had the little black 'waitressing' dress she wore when she worked for Ronnie and her overnight kit and set out for Camden. Ronnie, tall, a fair bit taller than Molly, slim with unruly blonde curls and a mouth like a steel trap or a sewer, depending on your point of view, was a good mate and her sometime temporary employer who lived and ran an events catering company, all from the same small warehouse building with a pretty minimal flat conversion above. Molly really envied her the privacy and freedom from nosy parker relatives that the flat gave her, even though it was more than a bit tatty, and Ronnie had offered to let her share on numerous occasions, but Molly had long ago accepted that she needed to live at home while she was a student, she could barely scrape together the tuition fees, let alone pay for any sort of independent living.

Her deployment money from her two active service tours in Afghanistan had disappeared into funding Bashira's education, with the remaining money vanishing down Dave's throat in the pub to be "pissed up against a wall" as it was known where she came from. She didn't resent the money going to look after Bashira, she felt that she owed her more, much more, than that, but she didn't feel quite the same about the money which had disappeared into the retirement fund of the local publican.

Feeling like you have to tell your mum where you're going and what time you'll be back home at night seemed pretty pathetic at almost 24, as did sleeping in the bottom bunk in a room festooned with fairy lights that she shared with her younger sister, not to mention never having any money after she'd paid her share of the household expenses.

It also meant that she didn't have any sort of sex life, not even the hint of one. Mind you, it had been a very long time since she'd met anyone she'd even consider fancying enough to go to bed with. Most of the blokes she met were too young and on the same course as she was and apart from 'not shitting on her own doorstep' as Ronnie would put it, most of them weren't to her taste at all, still, she sometimes thought it would be nice to have the option.

-OG-

"Oi, Azil, PUT HER DOWN; we're too fucking busy for your crap. We've got an hour and all this has to be done and be on the van so we ain't got time for any funny business right now"

The dulcet, honeyed tones of her friend Ronne rang out into the street outside making Molly giggle as she opened the little door set in the main warehouse doors and breathed in the sights and smells that were endemic to 'A Celebration' in full preparation mode. Ronnie had insisted that she had to call the company 'A' something or other, because no-one ever got beyond the 'A's when they googled web sites for some service they were looking for, and 'A Fucking Good Feed' probably wasn't very appropriate for the up market clients, or people with money to spend, that she was targeting. So far she had been very successful, hence her hiring of friends and relatives to supplement the permanent waiters and waitresses at events most weekends, especially in the summer and at Christmas, something Molly, with her poverty stricken student status, was exceedingly grateful for.

"Azil, what the fuck are you doing now? MOVE YOUR FUCKING ARSE!" she grinned and waved at Molly as she came through the door then returned to 'motivating' her staff "Ahmed, WASH YOUR FUCKING HANDS, we don't wanna eat food that you've touched after you've handled your FUCKING DICK, okay?"

Ronnie motioned with her head for Molly to follow her into her office, a tiny cluttered corner of the warehouse with an opening window, an absolute essential as far as Ronnie was concerned.

"You're gonna have a stroke before you're thirty if you keep on like that" Molly kissed her friend on the cheek as Ronnie used a stick to disable the smoke alarm with a well-practised flick of her arm and went to fling open the window "That as well" She nodded towards the pack of cigarettes that Ronnie had pulled out of her pocket.

"Crap, they expect to get yelled at and they don't mind, they love me, and they'd be worried if I was nice to them, Babe, and now I'm gonna commit a crime"

She flung open the window and lit her completely illegal cigarette, hanging her head out to blow the smoke away.

"Mind someone don't report you to the fag police"

Ronnie shrugged "They wouldn't dare. How are you, anyway? This should be right up your street tonight"

"What is it?"

"Some army bloke's having a garden party in his big posh house in Farnham, well, in his garden of course, they've got a marquee in case it pisses down, so toothy grins and curtseys all round because he's a brigadier or something and his wife sounds like she's got a bleeding marble in her gob, they've got a shed load of people coming" She stubbed her cigarette out on the concrete window ledge outside before turning back to Molly "You never know there might someone there who remembers you"

"Well of course they will, I mean, stands to reason don't it, as a squaddie I spent all me time hob-nobbing with Brigadiers and Generals, with the odd Colonel thrown in, I mean, they're bound to remember me, aren't they?"

"Okay, sarky cow and people _are_ bound to remember you, you won a fucking medal, didn't you?"

"Lots of people win medals, Ron, loads of them and believe me I was the lowest of the low" Molly giggled at the serious expression on her friend's face "Apart from anything else no-one looks at a waitress's face at these things do they? especially when she's dressed up like some bleeding French Maid kissogram"

"You're too small to be a kissogram, they've always got legs all the way up to their bum and your legs aren't long enough, oh and little frilly aprons really suit you" Ronnie laughed as Molly said 'thanks' and gave her the finger. She motioned her back into the main area "Stop your bleeding moaning and practise smiling and remember this is gonna make me some serious profit tonight, so let's all try and play nicely"

"I always play nicely; it's why you love me"

-OG-

At the same time as Molly was helping Ronnie pack the small refrigerated van with trays of party food, a tall dark haired man was pounding the streets of Aldershot listening to his I-Pad and contemplating the evening ahead as he poured with sweat during the summer heat of a cloudless afternoon. He had this wonderful sense of complacency with his life as he ran that everything was neatly sorted out and being very kind to him, the event this evening wouldn't have been to his taste at all once upon a time, but his relationship with Miranda was changing all that. A Brigadier's daughter, she was also a Major, the same rank as him, a tall and very slim girl who was quietly pretty and very self-contained, a calm girl that suited him down to the ground and although they weren't yet officially engaged, they both knew that they were heading in that direction and had started to talk about 'when' they were married, so that he knew that sooner or later he was going to ask her to marry him, or she was going to ask him to marry her, and that their 'couple' status would become official.

A life with Miranda would have a great deal going for it, it would be calm and predictable, without fireworks, and Sam liked her, Charles' parents liked her and being married to a Brigadier's daughter wouldn't be a bad career move for him either. Okay, so he wasn't exactly madly in love with her, there was no obvious spark between them, no butterflies in his stomach at the thought of seeing her, no missing her dreadfully when she wasn't around, but she didn't expect much from him in terms of an outward show of affection, or even in private in bed, just a calm acceptance of their affection for one another, and he had no intentions of ever looking for any of that stomach churning, almost nausea producing emotion ever again.

-OG-

"Shitting hell, this is a fair old gaffe, innit?"

"Yeah, looks like there's a bob or two in this soldiering shit"

"Only if you're a Brigadier or something, and you don't get many of them to the pound"

Ronnie had parked the van on the gravel sweep of the drive as they looked at the beautiful old house with its mullioned windows and multiple chimneys basking in afternoon sunshine that was reflecting off the open windows, the weed free flower beds and the well-kept lawns of the front garden and checked to see where the 'tradesman's' entrance was. Ronnie was sure that this type of house would have one, even though Mrs Brigadier hadn't mentioned it.

A very tall and slim girl with short feathered mousy fair hair came out of the front door to greet them and Molly knew immediately that she was army, the way she held herself, the way she moved and her well-muscled slim arms, her flat stomach and long legs all shown off to perfection in her white vest top and khaki shorts.

"If you follow me, I'll show you where you can park and where the kitchen entrance is" The deep well-modulated voice carried easily to the two girls sitting in the van without her needing to shout as Ronnie whispered "Told you there'd be a servants entrance didn't I?" and Molly couldn't help laughing at the triumphant tone in her voice at being proved right.

"Is that Mrs Brigadier, Ron? Jesus, she's young, must be a trophy wife"

"How the fuck would I know, never met her have I? But I don't think so; I don't think that's even a woman"

"My mother says that you can park here and use this door into the kitchen, oh and she asked me to tell you that the wine merchants have delivered the order and have put it in buckets of ice out in the marquee, rather than fill the fridge, oh by the way, I'm Miranda"

"Thank you Miranda"

Ronnie started to unload the van onto a large scrubbed kitchen table in the biggest and tidiest kitchen that Molly had ever seen.

"So, not Mrs Brigadier then?"

"Miranda? I thought she was a pretty bloke in drag"

"Ronnie!"

"Well, she's got loads of muscles and no tits and her hair's really short, and she's a bit tall isn't she? She's well taller than me, not to mention you, mind you, everyone's taller than you, shortarse"

"I can't help being a bit titchy, and she's army Ron, all muscles and fit 'n that, I used to be like that once"

"What, you had no tits? And you still are fit, Molls, ask Ahmed and Azil"

"Not that sort of fit, you dick, and we can't all have tits like yours"

-OG-

Two hours later and the party was in full swing with large groups of people, many of the men in khaki, and the girls in pastel coloured dresses, most of them long and floaty, standing around on the emerald sweep of a beautiful rolling and manicured lawn, with trees providing dappled shade and large cultivated beds of roses with wigwams of sweet peas dotted around, providing a heady sweet scent to the garden. Ronnie and Molly and the rest of the catering staff who had followed them down to Surrey in Azil's old Astra, were inside the large marquee serving behind the buffet and keeping the bowls of salad replenished, as well as pouring endless glasses of chilled white wine and beer together with iced water for those who were driving, and necking loads of it themselves when no-one was looking during any break in serving the food. It was absolutely baking hot in the marquee and they were all sweating buckets as the Brigadier's wife hadn't thought to order one with integral fans or air-conditioning so that the perishable stuff had to be kept in the fridges and cool boxes and they couldn't just plonk it all out and let people help themselves.

"Jesus, I'm fucking melting" Ronnie grabbed a paper serviette and wiped the sweat off her face and pulled her top away where it was clinging to her body as she dabbed at her substantial cleavage and Molly laughed and asked her if she'd forgotten that moaning wasn't allowed because this was making her a serious profit "Come on, Molls, let's get outside for a bit and cool down, take trays of booze and pretend we're circulating, leave the lads to get on with it in here, they're well used to hot places"

"What?" For a moment Molly thought that the heat had got to her and she was referring to where they came from, the two lads might look Asian, but Molly happened to know that one came from Coventry and the other from Tower Hamlets.

"They're used to being in the sodding kitchen"

The garden was beautifully cool in the fading light of the early evening and looked like something out of a glossy magazine with all the immaculately dressed and coiffed people standing in small chattering groups.

"Fuck me" Molly hadn't meant to say anything out loud at the picture of gracious living that was set out in front of them. Being in the marquee all evening hadn't prepared her for the sheer number of people in the garden, she hadn't paid much attention to how many there were as she'd rushed to serve them, and the garden looked packed.

"Not at the moment thanks, I don't really fancy you and it's a bit hot" Ronnie giggled and looked around at the crowd "Do you reckon she put this on Facebook?"

"Muppet"

-OG-

He was doing his best to pay attention to the incredibly boring story that some Colonel's wife was relating to the group of people he and Miranda were standing with, Miranda looked as though she was listening attentively, hanging on every word the tiresome woman was spouting, and Charles realised that, despite the months they'd been together, he didn't actually know her well enough to be able to judge whether she was listening or not. He was actually bored shitless, but obviously couldn't give any outward sign of it without running the risk of upsetting his host, the Brigadier, his hostess, the Brigadier's wife or Miranda, which, apart from being unforgivably bloody rude, wouldn't be a sensible career move on his part. So he stood there, fixed grin on his face, his mind wandering as he tried hard to concentrate and wondered exactly how many of these evenings he'd have to endure if he took the plunge and married her and whether it was a price worth paying.

"Muppet"

He knew his head had whipped round like some sort of cartoon character from one of Sam's DVDs, as his eyes scoped the crowd looking for and failing to find a small girl, with long dark hair, the source of _that_ voice from his past, calling someone _that_ name with _that_ tell-tale giggle that he'd never quite forgotten. After a while he began to doubt himself as he realised that he must have imagined it, the garden was crowded and there was a lot of chatter all around them and the voice hadn't been loud; he couldn't possibly have remembered someone's voice that clearly from hearing just one word, someone he hadn't seen for, he couldn't think for how long exactly, but for more than four years and anyway what the hell would she be doing here. He made a conscious effort to stop looking for her and forced his attention back to Miranda who was staring at him strangely as though she had asked him something and he hadn't answered.

"Sorry?"

"I said shall we go and get a coffee or something? Where were you, you were miles away"

"Yep, a coffee would be great and sorry if I was a bit …you know, distracted for a moment"

"That woman is enough to make anyone a bit distracted or to try and be"

For a moment he couldn't think what woman she was talking about, and then made a conscious effort to pull himself together and follow her into the sweltering marquee where a young, very flushed and warm looking waiter was serving coffee.

-OG-

"Here, I've just copped an eyeful of that Miranda's bloke, how did some bird who looks like an ironing board get her hands on a fit bloke like him, she must have more going for her than I thought, must be shit-hot in bed or something. They're over there getting coffee" Ronnie nudged Molly who was loading up another tray with glasses of wine ready to circulate again through the garden "If all the blokes look like him I'm not surprised girls join the bleeding army"

"What, he's in the army too?"

"Yeah, maybe it's the uniform"

"I think it's time you found another bloke, Tits, you're beginning to sound desperate for a shag"

"I wouldn't say no to that one, wouldn't kick him out of bed, I think I'm in lust with him, and anyway what about you? How long's it been? Long enough for you to become a born again virgin yet?"

"Nearly and you don't want some bloke that's already spoken for, Ron, you've tried that before"

Molly was still giggling as she looked over her shoulder in the direction that Ronnie had indicated with her head and met a very familiar pair of deep chocolate brown eyes which were staring at her transfixed as if he'd seen a ghost. He patted Miranda on the arm and said something to her, then walked towards them, which wiped the grin off Molly's face in record time.

"Oh, bollocks"

"Hello Molly"

-OG-

 **Author's notes: I know this is a longer chapter than I normally do, but the scene is now set! I hope you enjoyed it.**


	2. Chapter 2

"You look well"

"Thanks, so do you, still in I see"

"Yep, you're not, well obviously"

"No"

There was a short but excruciatingly awkward pause as they both tried to think of something to say next, then, avoiding his eyes, Molly smiled and gestured at her tray with her head and said she that she'd better go and circulate as she was supposed to be working, then smiled and walked away from him out into the garden on knees that had turned to jelly with hands that were actually shaking, making the glasses vibrate so that the wine slopped over onto the tray. She was doing her best to pay no attention at all to Ronnie who was hissing questions in her ear. Charles stood and watched her walk away from him and ignored his instincts which were telling him to shout 'stop, come back, come back and talk to me'.

"Come on; how the fuck do you know him?"

"Later, Ron, not here, I'll tell you later, I promise, just not now, okay?"

Molly was practising the deep breathing exercises she had learned on her course, the ones that were designed to help reduce the adrenaline rush you get when you are faced with a potentially dangerous client situation. They'd all wondered how well the exercises would actually work in real life, and whether they'd be able to remember them if someone was actually trying to rip their head off, and she smiled to herself that if it hadn't been for the embarrassing nature of the situation she'd just used them for, she'd be telling everyone just how good they were.

The party seemed to drag on forever as far as Charles was concerned, he chatted and laughed and shook hands with people and smiled and mingled and circulated with Miranda, very conscious of her hand on his arm, had a short conversation with her father, the Brigadier, and his wife, and all the time he was 100% aware of exactly where she was and what she was doing. He was watching her out of the corner of his eye and trying to form a plan of when and how he could get to be on his own with her so that he could ask her some of the questions that had started screaming inside his head, demanding answers, from the minute he'd set eyes on her. His memory of the day when he'd last seen her was slightly hazy, but he could remember her with absolute clarity. She looked only very slightly older, except for her hair which was much shorter, curling softly onto her shoulders, but her eyes were the same clear green as he remembered, still without a trace of make-up as far as he could tell, mind you it was so hot in that marquee that it would probably have melted anyway. He knew that this was neither the time nor the place, and that even if he could get her on her own, which was highly unlikely, it would be impossible to explain it to Miranda or her parents, and he was doubtful if Molly would give him her phone number or anything else, so he picked up a paper napkin off the buffet, one of those with the logo and name of the catering company on it, and pushed it into his pocket. He was exceedingly relieved that he wasn't expected to stay over with Miranda after the party and that she wasn't expecting to leave her parents' house to stay over with him, he just wanted to go home and to be on his own and to try to get his thoughts straight.

-OG-

Packing up at the end of the party took all the concentration Molly could muster, half of her was terrified that he would appear at any second so that she was fearfully checking over her shoulder every couple of minutes looking to make sure that he wasn't standing there with his legs wide apart and his arms folded across his chest waiting for her with that look on his face, and half of her was desperately disappointed that he wasn't. She had spent the last couple of hours completely aware of him as she'd served drinks out in the garden which was still very warm, and he'd mingled with other guests. She'd been totally aware of Miranda's hand on his arm which had made her think what a 'couple' they looked, how well they matched. Although Miranda was tall, he was a good head taller than her, and of most of the other guests at the party, and he'd lost none of his looks in the four years since she'd last seen him. Molly badly needed to get away from him and from the memories that were so unsettling.

Both the girls were totally knackered when they'd finally finished unloading the van and jettisoning uneaten buffet food, of which there was very little, into the re-cycling waste and industrial bins and loading the dishwashers ready for the morning. It had been a very long, hot and exhausting evening and they were now lying in their underwear in the sauna-like heat of Ronnie's flat and drinking cold beer out of bottles without the benefit of glasses, Ronnie smoking a legal cigarette, this was her home and not the workspace. Neither of them was hungry but that was nothing unusual, Ronnie always reckoned the best diet in the world was watching other people pig out on food you'd spent all day cooking, it never failed.

"You need to spend some of your bleeding profits on a fan for this bloody place" Molly swigged another mouthful of cold beer and turned the cushion that was supporting her head, looking for a cool bit to lie on.

"Never mind all that, tell Aunty Ronnie, how do you know him, Mr Bleeding Gorgeous?"

"You're not my Aunty, thank Christ, I've got enough shit relatives as it is, don't need you as well" Molly sucked her teeth and took a deep breath, knowing that Ron wouldn't let it go until she had what she thought were all the details "I used to know him a bit when I was in the army, well obviously, but it was a long time ago now, haven't seen him for years"

Molly hoped that her nonchalant tone would be enough to satisfy Ronnie's self-confessed nosiness.

"And that's it? Come off it, babe, you were shaking like a bloody leaf when you saw him"

"He was my boss, Captain Charles James, my CO in Afghan, Commanding Officer, the first time I was out there, happy now?"

"What and you shagged him?"

"No, of course not" She giggled "There are bloody rules about that sort of stuff in the army; you can't go round shagging your boss"

"And that's it? I told you, come off it, Molls; you weren't shaking like that because he used to be your bleeding boss"

"Okay, well, I might possibly have had a bit of a thing about him, a bit of a crush"

"And?"

"And he might possibly have had a bit of a thing about me"

"And?"

"Okay, okay, I most likely would have shagged him when we got back home, well there's no probably about it, but he got hisself shot just before we came home" She carefully didn't mention her part in the exercise that had seen him get so badly injured, or her part in saving his life "I really thought he was dead to start with, Ron, then I wasn't sure if he was gonna make it, I don't think anyone was, and even if he did make it, no-one knew whether he was going to lose his leg, so I went to see him in Birmingham in hospital and his wife turned up, with his little boy"

"Oh, shhhiiiit"

"I didn't even know he was married to start with, he never said, but I did already know by the time he was shot, he never told me I found out by accident, but then he told me that they was separated, turned out that they was divorced, I mean, what sort of bloke don't tell you he's married, then tells you he's separated when he's actually divorced?"

"One who wants to shag you but doesn't want you getting any ideas?"

"Yeah"

"So what happened?"

"As I said, his bloody wife was there and they didn't look very divorced to me, so I left them to it, I didn't know what else to do. I went back after to say goodbye, I was still bleeding nuts about him then, and she'd gone and taken their little boy Sam with her and he started telling me that he was going to leave the army to be with me. Shit, Ron, he was really ill and there was all this stuff with his wife, I didn't know what to think or what to do, I didn't even know if he meant any of it, and there wasn't anyone I could talk to about it, not even him, he was so ill and it was so against the rules you know, so I panicked. I was nineteen, wasn't even twenty yet, and he was nearly thirty and I had no idea what was going to happen, or what the hell I was doing, so I told him that I'd see him in a couple of days and I walked, and then I kept on walking, never went back. That was four years ago."

"And you haven't seen him since?"

"Nah, he rang me a few times to start with but I didn't pick up, so then he stopped ringing, so ….." She shrugged.

"What are you going to do now? What if he tries to contact you?"

"What for? He won't, he's not stupid, he ain't gonna risk pissing whatsherface, Miranda, off, she's perfect for him and they looked like a proper couple, she's a much better bet than I ever was, and her dad's a Brigadier not a piss head like mine, a Brigadier in the family must be pretty bloody handy if you want to get on in the army."

-OG-

Early morning on what looked like being another beautiful day and a tall dark haired man was again pounding the streets of Aldershot, building up a sweat as he ran over and over the events of the last twelve hours in his head and tried to make a sensible, considered decision. In the cold light of day he was sure that the sensible thing to do would be to let it go, to do nothing to open that particular can of worms, after all it had all been a long time ago and if you play with fire you'll get burnt.

The first thing he'd done when he'd got home was to log on to find the right catering company, and had decided that the one in Camden was the most likely bet as he made a note of their phone number; he didn't think they'd respond to an e-mail request looking for contact details for one of their staff. Now all he had to do was decide whether to call them and try and find her, or whether to just bin the piece of paper with their number on it and try to forget that he'd seen her.

"Hello, I'm trying to get in touch with one of your staff from last night's party at Oak Trees in Farnham, an old friend of mine, a Miss Dawes, Molly, at least I presume she's still Miss Dawes" A horrible thought occurred to him as he spoke, he hadn't looked to see whether she was wearing a ring, it hadn't even crossed his mind that she might be married "She was one of the waitresses and I wondered if I could have her phone number"

Ronnie was making frantic hand signals and pulling faces at Molly, pointing to the receiver and smirking and gesturing at holding the receiver out towards her, miming asking if she wanted to speak to whoever it was on the other end of the line, to which Molly was equally frantically shaking her head and mouthing "NO".

"We don't have a waitress by that name, Sir, although she might be one of our casuals" Ronnie was grimacing, making a face that was saying sorry Sir, I'm lying through my teeth here "But I'm sorry, we don't give out the personal details of any of our staff, its company policy"

"Right, of course, but could you please just check to see whether she is one of your casuals, and if she is, could I perhaps leave a message for her?"

Ronnie confirmed that he could leave a message, she could hardly deny that Molly had been a waitress at the party and she couldn't pretend that they didn't know her, that they had just dragged in any old someone off the street. He left his mobile number and asked that she call him, putting down the receiver with a deep sense of dissatisfaction, he was pretty unconvinced that Molly would get the message, and, if she did, whether she would call him. During all his soul searching during his all but sleepless night and on his run he had known all along that he was going to make the call and was now disappointed with the outcome. He wished more than anything that he'd made an effort to speak to her the previous evening, but there was nothing he could do about that now, it was far too late for those sorts of regrets.

-OG-

"You gonna call him?"

"Nah"

"You won't want this then?" Ronnie made to throw the piece of paper with his phone number on it into the bin.

"Oi, Give that here"

"What for"

"Stop being such a nosy cow and stop bullying me, keep that for the lads, them poor buggers 'ave gotta put up with it, you pay their wages"

"I pay yours too"

"You call that a wage?" Molly snorted "Give us it, Ron, I need to think about it"

"You can't call him and not tell me, that's not allowed"

"Who says? Anyway I'm most probably not gonna call him, I mean what the bloody hell would I say to him?"

All the way home on the bus Molly kept looking at the piece of paper with his phone number on it, and once or twice she thought about dialling his number, then changed her mind. She hadn't been lying when she'd said to Ronnie that she had no idea what on earth she'd say to him, it was the truth, far too much time had passed. They were now very different people, well she was anyway, and she expected that his life had moved on as well, well she'd seen that for herself the previous evening, so they would have nothing or very little, just some ancient history, in common anymore.

She was rotating her phone through her hands as she stretched out on the bottom bunk wishing that they had a garden when she finally took her courage in both hands and punched out his number, she'd been gearing herself up for more than an hour, working out her opening words only to have the wind completely taken out of her sails as her call went straight to voice mail.

"Um, hello, I'll, er, umm, I'll try again later, umm, oh, it's Molly by the way, I had a message to ring you"

She immediately started beating herself up as she disconnected the call and cringed, she couldn't have sounded more stupid if she'd tried, she should have hung up and called back when she'd thought of something even marginally intelligent to say, instead of which she'd sounded like the tongue-tied inarticulate nineteen year old lovesick Molly Dawes that he'd known.

It was less than ten minutes later when her screen lit up with his name, she had stored his number in her directory, telling herself that she might lose the tatty scrap of paper and knowing when she called him that he would be able to get her number from that call. For a moment she considered letting his call go to voice mail, she wasn't sure she was ready to talk to him, wasn't sure what to say, then swiped 'answer', she was as ready as she was ever going to be.

"Hello"

"Hello Molly"

"Hello Boss"

He laughed "I never thought I'd hear that again, well not from you anyway, how are you? you looked really well last night"

"Good, and you? I see your leg's better, no limp or nothing"

"Yes, its fine, I'm fine" He paused and she heard him take a deep breath, sounding unaccustomedly nervous "It's been a long time hasn't it? I was wondering if there was any chance I can see you, I'd love to have a proper chat, you know, maybe get together and go for a drink or a walk or something, what do you think?"

"I dunno"

"Please?"

"I s'pose so"

He laughed "I've heard you be more enthusiastic Dawsey"

"Don't call me that, no-one ever calls me that anymore"

"That's sad"

-OG-

Two days later in Hyde Park and sitting on the outside terrace of the Serpentine bar, watching the people out on the water in small boats and the groups wandering around the edge of the lake and the tourists, Molly was asking herself what the fuck she was doing there. Charles was inside getting their drinks as she contemplated doing a runner before he came back, she'd been quite right when she'd said they were now two different people, all the things that had drawn them together in the first place had gone, changed beyond recognition.

Charles was in the bar waiting to be served and asking himself pretty much the same question, he'd watched her walk across the grass of Hyde Park from where he was sitting waiting, and had had the strongest urge to get up and leave before she saw him. On his way up on the train he had got increasingly worried that he would experience those stomach churning sensations he used to get when he saw her, a hint of which he'd had on Saturday night. He was now congratulating himself that it hadn't happened, that Saturday had obviously been because it was a bit of a bit of shock seeing her like that, and that he had everything under control now. It was going to be like having a drink and catching up with any other ex-colleague.

-OG-

 **Author's notes: Another long one, so hope you enjoy it. I'm blown away by the reviews for Chapter one, thank you so much for taking the time and trouble to review for me and for being so kind. I'm sure that there must be other authors on this site who suffer the same agonies of insecurity as I do as to whether people are going to love or hate what I write, so your reviews made my day.**


	3. Chapter 3

"So, what made you leave the army to be a waitress?"

Of all the things she'd expected him to say when he'd sat back down at the table with their drinks, that definitely hadn't been on the list anywhere. She'd expected and got geared up to answer questions about why she'd pissed off the way she had, not that she had any sane sounding answer to give him.

"I'm not a waitress, Ronnie told you that I am just a casual, she's a sort of mate of mine, and I owe her a lot so I do a bit for her now and then" she giggled "Although what's wrong with being a waitress?"

To say that Ronnie was a sort of mate was an enormous understatement as Molly always felt that Ronnie had quite literally saved her life, she'd been a total mess, firmly on the slippery slope to self-destruction when Ronnie had come into her life and sorted her out. They had met outside a slightly seedy nightclub where Molly was, as usual, as pissed as a newt and leaning against the wall crying her eyes out. Ronnie had promptly dumped the bloke she was with saying there were plenty more where he came from and taken her home to Camden where she was trying to get her business off the ground.

"Nothing's wrong with it, sorry, I sounded like a patronising twat, didn't I? And how do you know what she said to me?"

"Ah, well, I was sort of sitting there listening"

"Why didn't you talk to me? Not that It matters" he shrugged quickly, even though he found that it did matter, quite a lot "But it's just that I sort of expected you to go on being a medic and to carry on being absolutely bloody brilliant at it"

"Yeah, well, I wanted to change what I was doing, I did another tour of Afghan after well ….you know, I did one where I was mentoring ANA medics and I saw Bashira and Quaseem, and she was doing alright….."

Charles shook his head as he listened, he'd lost count of the number of times he'd told her that none of what had happened had been her fault, and he swallowed hard as he remembered the sheer terror he'd felt when she'd stood in front of the little girl in the suicide vest.

"And then I came back and they bunged me up to Catterick for, well it felt like for bleeding ever, then I was posted to Pirbright which was just as bad, then the bastards sent me back to Catterick again for fuck's sake, so I decided to get out and do this access course and now I'm at South Bank Uni. They call me a mature student, only I'm not so sure most of the time, about the mature bit I mean. What I think they mean is that I'm bleeding ancient if you look at the other buggers on the course"

"Really?" He sounded dubious "Sorry did that sound patronising again? I didn't mean to, what are you studying?"

"I'm going to be a Social Worker" She smiled with the little self-deprecating smile that he remembered so well "I'm going to specialise in working with people with what they call mental health issues, and what we call 'nut jobs' "

"Bloody hell, Molly"

"What? You sound surprised. I went a bit nuts myself there for a while, I was a real mess, totally fragged, couldn't get any calm in me nut at all, so I sort of understand what it feels like to struggle and I wanted to do something to help"

"Is that when you met Ronnie?"

"Yeah, she sorted me out, so I really owe her"

She was finding it more and more difficult to avoid catching his eye, every time she looked up they seemed to lock onto each other, which reminded her of times gone by, times in the FOB, times she had worked very hard to forget, so that she had to keep looking away as she scratched around desperately trying to find a change of subject, but he got in first.

"Tell me about Smurf, I heard he was in London with you when it happened, when he died"

He had this vivid memory of being in incredible pain and being scared to death on that bloody bridge in Afghan and hearing her talking to Smurf about them going to Las Vegas.

"What about him?" She realised that he thought that her being fragged was due somehow to what had happened with Smurf.

"I was surprised you weren't at his funeral"

"He wasn't _with me_ when it happened, he was just visiting, a bit like you are now" She took a large swig of her coke and wished that she'd asked for alcohol of some sort, any sort, she'd wanted to stay completely sober, but could do with some now "And I didn't go to his funeral because everyone, you know, the lads 'n that, would have expected me to be the grieving bloody broken-hearted girlfriend and I wasn't, and I couldn't pretend. He was my mate, I was never his girlfriend, and I was very sad that he was dead but we was never anything else, and were never going to be, anyway I sort of knew you'd be there and I was a bit worried about …. well, you know …."

"You didn't want to see me?"

"No Boss, I was a bit scared to"

"Charles, please call me Charles, and why were you scared to see me?"

"I don't know …. Charles" She lied "It was a long time ago now, and I can't remember what I was thinking"

Molly was wishing more and more that she'd done a runner when she still had the opportunity, before he'd got back with the drinks or that she'd obeyed her first instincts and let him remain somewhere in her history. She hadn't thought about this stuff for years, had successfully buried it and wanted, more than anything, for it to stay buried, she'd never discussed any of it with anyone, apart from those few words with Ronnie the other night, and she didn't want to start now, especially not with him.

"Miranda seems very nice"

"Yep, she is"

"Have you been together long?"

"A fair while. What about you, anyone special in your life?"

"Nah, I'm too busy, haven't got time for all that shit, what with Uni and studying and waitressing 'n that"

"That's a shame"

Another long pause saw Molly looking for yet another change of subject as she wondered why he wasn't making more of an effort to find a fresh topic of conversation; after all he was the one who'd wanted to meet for this chat.

"How's Sam?"

"Growing up fast, he's just gone off to boarding school"

"That sounds like shit, poor little bugger"

He laughed "He loves it"

"Really?" It was her turn to sound dubious "Can't think of anything worse, meself"

"He's eleven, that's a lot older than I was when I first went, I was only eight"

"Well, that explains a lot, dunnit?"

"What do you mean? You cheeky mare"

Another silence, another attempt to avoid catching his eye and a surreptitious peep at her watch as Molly wondered how soon she could escape and go home, when, much to her relief, he initiated another topic of conversation, a relief which proved to be very short lived.

"Bit of a coincidence that, both of us being at that party on Saturday"

"I wasn't exactly _at_ the party was I?" She started to giggle "I don't think I'd make Mrs. Brigadier's guest list somehow"

"You know what I mean, it was really good to see you, it _is_ really good to see you"

"Was it? I mean, is it?" She could feel the colour beginning to sweep up her neck as she blushed, unsure whether to say it was good to see him as well, and deciding not to "I suppose that's what you used to call Lady Luck when we was in Afghan"

"You remember that?"

"Of course I do, I remember all of it"

She looked around wanting desperately to change the subject again and feeling another flood of relief as he started talking again.

"How's your family? Do you see much of them?"

"Yeah, quite a bit as it happens, I've moved back home to live" She smiled at the expression on his face "You've heard of poor students, well I'm one of 'em. Why else would I spend my Saturday nights dressed up like something off a French film and waiting hand and foot on a load of posh twats in someone's back garden?"

"Now you sound like the Dawsey I know and …..." He paused and corrected himself quickly"knew and loved"

"Yeah, well I'm not the same person now as I was then, the one you knew, a hell of a lot's gone on since then"

"I know, but you're still as disrespectful now as you were then"

"You cheeky bugger, I don't know what you mean" She laughed "I don't have to be respectful to you, you're not my bleeding boss anymore"

"I didn't notice you being exactly respectful when I was" He smiled at her "Your boss I mean"

"It's a bit bleeding late to start moaning about it now"

"I'm not moaning, I'm just remembering"

"Well don't"

"I can't help it" He took a deep breath and started to bite his bottom lip as he stared into space across the lake in front of them "For a long time before I met you, Molly, there was nothing. And then there was you, disrespectful and bloody disobedient but you got rid of all the clouds and the remaining shit that I'd been carrying around since Rebecca. I was over her by the time I met you, of course I was, but you reminded me of who I was, or the person I used to be, which was a total dick, by the way. Actually, I think we were both total dicks, you and I, you scared the flaming shit out of me with some of the stunts you pulled, but you made me laugh too, you made me fucking happy, and I thought that when we got home we'd be happy together. Then you found out about Rebecca. It was my fault because I knew I should have told you a long time before, but I was a coward, so everything got very badly fucked up ….."

"That weren't all your fault" She interrupted, wondering how the hell they'd got into this conversation "I had something to do with fucking things up as well"

"That's what I'm trying to say, Molly, none of it, none of it was your fault, it was me that screwed things up and then you were gone and I never got the chance to tell you any of it"

Molly sat and stared at him and wondered where all this had come from, when it had all become about her and fought the temptation to pull him towards her and give him a hug to make it better, then reminded herself that she was a grown up and he was a grown up and they were, supposedly, having a grown up conversation about their shared past, a past which couldn't be magically wiped clean of hurt by a hug. And anyway he was with Miranda now, he wasn't free and he didn't need a hug from her.

"Why didn't you tell me how you felt, I mean, you told me in that bunker about me being all you wanted, well you know what you said when you thought we was all going to die, …. But you never said about me making you happy and that was all I wanted to hear really, that I made you happy, you said that you wanted to make me happy, but that was because we'd had a fight, but you never said anything else"

"I wanted to protect you, I suppose, I didn't want anyone to know how I felt, not even you, it was hard enough hiding it as it was, and in the end I didn't actually do a very good job of that, did I? But anything more and it would have been impossible"

"I'm sorry about what happened, about what I did"

"I told you, it wasn't your fault, but why didn't you call me, or write or e-mail me or something? Let me know that you were okay"

"I'm sorry, it weren't like I planned it or nothing, you know, the way it happened. I never meant to leave you hanging like that, but I just couldn't handle any of it, Rebecca and you and the way I felt, and then the longer I stopped away, the harder it got to …. well I was just too young I s'pose"

"What, not 'mature' like you are now?"

"Are you taking the piss?"

"Would I?"

"Yeah"

"Come on" he laughed as he got up and put his hand out to help her to her feet "Let's go for a walk". He was still holding her hand as they started to walk slowly across Hyde Park towards Marble Arch tube station and the bus routes.

They walked in silence, sharing the occasional smile as Charles squeezed her hand, then tucked her arm through his, pulling her body closer to his side so that she could feel the heat radiating from him as they walked and she felt an alarming urge to put her hand up and stroke his face, the way he'd stroked hers once upon a time. They got to the road and stood looking at each other, knowing that this was the end of the line as far as they were concerned, that they both needed to get on with moving their lives in the directions they'd chosen, Molly to start doing what she was training so hard to do, and Charles to carry on building his career in the army, and his life with Miranda. They couldn't, or wouldn't, be able to do that if they kept on seeing each other, too much time had passed and their lives no longer had anything in common, Molly had been right about that, so even though nothing was said, they both knew that this was the end, that they should say their goodbyes and mean them.

"Can I kiss you goodbye?"

"Course"

He put his hand on the back of her head and pulled her towards him then bent his head and kissed her gently, feeling her soft lips part slightly under the pressure of his kiss as he fought against the almost overpowering urge to pull her in tight against him and to kiss her properly, the way he'd longed to kiss her when they were in Afghanistan, and the way he'd longed to do all afternoon.

"Bye, take care of you, stay safe for me"

"Ditto"

Watching her walk away towards the tube station he wanted to run after her and tell her that they were making a mistake, that this was a huge mistake, but she didn't look back at him, just kept on walking, so he turned and walked in the opposite direction, telling himself that his mistake had been in trying to turn the clock back. He should never have called her, shouldn't have met her this afternoon, definitely shouldn't have kissed her, should have been content with the life he'd created for himself after she'd gone the first time and that the wisest thing he could do now was to try and get back to that life as quickly as possible. What he was going to do about Miranda he had no idea, except that he needed to think very long and hard about whether it would be fair to keep on with doing things the way he had for almost the last year.

-OG-

"You cow, you didn't tell me you'd called him or that you were going to see him"

"I'm sorry, Ron, and I'm telling you now, aren't I?

"Details, the least you can do is to give me details, I need to know, come on, did you jump him?"

"What, in the middle of Hyde Park? No, course not" Molly giggled "What do you take me for? You really do need to find another bloke, you know that don't you? You're getting obsessed"

"No chance, I'm always bloody cooking or waiting on people who are at some party with some person they're already shagging, and there are never any spare blokes at these things"

"Oh poor you, just remember your serious profits"

"Oh yes there is that. So, how do you feel now you've seen him?"

"I dunno, okay I guess, maybe a bit sad"

Molly had gone straight to Camden after leaving Hyde Park, she hadn't looked back when she'd left him, she didn't want to see him walk straight off, most likely straight back to Miranda, and she didn't want to go home and pretend that nothing had happened. Home, where they would have ripped the shit out of her if she'd told them that her posh boss out in Afghan had once the hots for her, and that she'd walked away from him four years ago and that she'd seen him again this afternoon. She wanted to talk about him to someone who knew about them, the way she'd always longed to be able to talk about him before.

So she told Ronnie about meeting him and relayed a lot of what they'd said by the Serpentine, although not all of it by any means, some of it was private so that she doubted that she would ever tell anyone, but she also didn't tell Ronnie that he'd kissed her goodbye or that the kiss had re-awakened all sorts of feelings that she'd been supressing for years. Apart from anything else, Ronnie would have renewed her attack on her single status, encouraging her to find someone to make a lie out of her being a born again virgin. As far as Ronnie was concerned there was nothing that couldn't be solved with a bloody good shag, preferably with a reasonably good looking bloke with no strings attached who knew what he was about. Molly made a resolution, as she had done a hundred times before, to stop being quite so picky and to make a conscious effort to look around the campus when the new term started, there must be some bloke there who didn't leave her stone cold, or make her feel that she'd rather stay in and cut her toenails than go out for a drink with them. She needed to focus on finding someone to fill a void in her life; a void that she hadn't been aware was there until today.

"Are you still up for working on Saturday?"

"Course, it's not the bleeding army again though, is it?"

"No. So you're not going out for a drink with lover boy then?"

"Of course not, I told you, I won't be seeing him again, it was a one-off"

-OG-

 **Author's notes: Even longer! Thank you so much for your reviews I am really glad that you are enjoying this (sorry if I'm annoying when I say I hope you enjoy what I write, it's something I do I'm afraid, even when I'm talking about making someone a bog-standard cheese sandwich).**


	4. Chapter 4

Early evening and a tall dark haired man was again pounding the streets of Aldershot working up a sweat as he tried hard to use the exercise to exorcise the memories that were troubling him, as he listened to Elvis on his I-Pad.

 _I just can't help believin'_

 _When she slips her hand in my hand_

 _And it feels so small and helpless_

 _And my fingers fold around it like a glove_

 _I just can't help believin'_

 _When she's whispering her magic_

 _And her tears are shining honey sweet with love_

 _This time the girl is gonna stay_

 _This time the girl is gonna stay_

 _For more than just a day_

 _I just can't help believing_

He wrenched his earpiece out, not wanting to listen to any more of some stupid song which seemed to have been written for his relationship with Molly, or rather the relationship he used to have once upon a time. He didn't want to remember any of this stuff, but he'd been fooling himself when he'd decided that they could just have a conversation like any other ex-colleagues, he'd found himself talking about things he'd had no intention of talking about. He couldn't make himself forget her face when he'd held her hand for the first time in the FOB, and the way that had made him feel and the way she'd looked at him with her green eyes full of tears in that bunker and the way she'd said ditto when he'd told her that she was all he wanted and the way he'd managed to well and truly fuck it all up. All he knew right now was that it hadn't felt _over_ when he'd held her hand during their walk that afternoon and that it didn't seem to matter what they'd understood when they'd kissed each other goodbye, that it was supposed to be the last time they'd ever see one another, which, as far as he was concerned was something he didn't want to think about.

It was going to take a hell of a lot of effort to turn his back on the unfinished business, but he knew he had to do it, to get back to the sort of sensible decisions he had been making before he'd met her again, to get back to where he was before that bloody garden party.

-OG-

"What is it?" Molly sniffed dubiously at her glass.

"Don't matter what it is, just drink it, it's supposed to be good for you"

"Jesus, Ronnie, it tastes like all kinds of shite"

"Yeah it does, doesn't it? I thought it was just me, you know how me taste buds are a bit fucked when I've just had a fag"

"Nothing to do with swigging half a bottle of red straight from the bottle, then? What the hell's in this anyway and why the fuck would I need a health food shit type drink? You know I don't do all that 'it's good for you' bollocks"

"Thought it might help"

"Help with what?"

"Had a phone call this afternoon from Mrs Brigadier, she wants us to do another party"

"And?"

"Listen, I don't expect you to …" Ronnie took a deep breath, "She wants us to do an engagement party for her daughter, that one, you know, the ironing board, the blokey one" Molly giggled and tried to ignore the knifing pain that had shot through her, as Ronnie smiled and tried to work out how to be tactful. Despite everything she'd said, Ronnie felt that she knew how Molly was going to feel about Charles getting engaged.

"Shitting hell, he didn't waste much time, did he?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, nah, I dunno, do I? And why the hell didn't you give me the booze? Why were you drinking it and not me?" Molly sniffed back the tears that were threatening and couldn't help wondering what Miranda had known about their meeting in Hyde Park last week, nothing would have been her first guess, but now she wasn't so sure, and did Miranda know what he'd been saying to her, the bastard "I mean, it's not like I didn't expect this or nothing, he said that they'd been together for a bit" She took a deep breath "So when's the party?"

"Sure you're okay?

"Yeah, course I am, I'm fine"

"A week next Friday, she's gonna let me have the numbers as soon as she knows them, I don't know if it's going to be a big do or not"

"That's easy, she can just shove it on Facebook again, pack the bleeding place out"

"Do you want to come? Size up the competition"

"It's not a competition, and no, I bloody well don't wanna come. I said, he's got sod all to do with me, it's none of my sodding business, he's marrying her, Miranda, and I'm happy for him, for them. Anyway I've gotta date that night"

"Who with?"

"Dunno, haven't decided who the lucky bloke's gonna be yet" Molly giggled and tried again to stem the tears that were threatening to flow" You know how shite I am these days at pulling, so it'll probably be some no-hoper with halitosis and a personality that's gone missing, Oh and teeth like Stonehenge"

"Bullshit. Once the players realise that you're up for it, they'll be queuing round the block and he'll be a bloody lucky sod who gets you, whoever he is"

"Depends what you mean by up for it, I'm not you"

"I don't know what you mean"

"Yes you bloody do, and obviously he didn't think so" Molly turned her back on Ronnie hoping that her mate wouldn't notice that she had given up the battle and tears were now trickling down her face "All that time ago I knew he was out of my reach, you know, not in the same league and then last week, he said all this stuff, how could he say all that Ron? I mean, why would he? and how could he kiss me like that? and then a week later go off and get engaged to her, ask her to marry him, make me feel like he might still care a little bit about me and then make me feel like I'M NOT BLEEDING GOOD ENOUGH ….. AGAIN, I hate him"

"You never told me he kissed you"

"Sorry" Molly sniffed, and then wiped her nose and the tears from under her eyes on the back of her hand "And I'm being a bit dumb aren't I? He never actually said nothing about still caring about me, it just seemed like he did. Can I borrow your lap top?"

"Go and wash your face first, you look like road kill" Ronnie laughed "And wash your hands properly as well, I don't want snot on my keyboard, I take it we're going to stalk the competition on Facebook"

"Yeah, I told you it's not a competition, but I want to see what she's got that I haven't"

"What, apart from a daddy that's a Brigadier you mean?"

Fifteen minutes later they looked at one another and were for once speechless. Accessing Miranda's Facebook page had been easy and, at least to Molly, deeply depressing. Not only because there was a very beautiful picture of the two of them sitting together drinking coffee outside a café in France, underneath a green tinged umbrella and wearing 'T' shirts and sunglasses, in very obviously smiley coupledom but there was another one taken at some fete somewhere with them and a young lad that Molly recognised as Sam, even if he was a lot older, and a middle aged couple who were most likely his parents. In all of the pictures Miranda was beautifully and very expensively dressed and looked slim and horribly healthy, all toned with shiny hair and smooth with a calm smile.

"Jesus, she makes me feel like an animated rubbish dump" Ronnie began to giggle "Even if she is a bit vain with all these pictures on here, mind you she hasn't got any in a bikini has she? That's because she hasn't got any tits. I see she still reckons she's single"

"Yeah, and I'll bet that's just because she hasn't got around to changing it yet and if I looked like her I'd put loads of pictures on Facebook as well"

"You're not on Facebook you muppet, and you're miles better looking than she is any day"

"Nice of you, even if we both know that that's a whopping great porkie and I'll bet she wears sexy silk knickers, not like me in me white cotton ones" Molly started giggling "Well, they were white once upon a time but they're more like grey now they've been in the wash with dad's socks"

"That's alright; social workers don't wear silk knickers"

"How the fuck would you know? Actually it's just as well, cos I ain't got any and I wouldn't want to wear them if I had them"

"Liar"

"I can't afford 'em even if I did want 'em"

"That's more like it and there's nothing stopping you buying some knickers that haven't been in the wash with Dave's socks, God, what a horrible thought, Dave's socks" She paused to shudder theatrically "Marks's knickers aren't that expensive"

"Maybe I'll buy some new ones before I go on this date"

"Way to go" Ronnie punched the air like a football supporter "Get in there, my son"

-OG-

"Are you listening to me Charles?"

"Yes, of course I am, why?"

"You seem a bit distracted again, that's all"

"Sorry, where were we?"

Miranda started talking about their engagement party again, the one she was organising with her mother, the engagement that he knew he should never have agreed to. Before her mother's bloody garden party they'd had this tacit agreement that that's where they were heading, and now, a very short time later, it had become a fact and she was talking about rings and parties and agreeing dates with everyone, not only for an engagement party but for a wedding, a wedding he was no longer sure he wanted. She had just told him that her mother had arranged for the same caterers as she'd had for her garden party and his first instinct had been to shout 'shit no, what about Molly? find someone else, anyone else, just don't involve her'.

He had gone along with the suggestion that they should get married sooner rather than later in a vain attempt to get everything back under control, to get back on track, well he hadn't actually said 'yes let's do it' but he hadn't said 'no' either, and even as his head had nodded in agreement he had known he was making another huge mistake, that he was fucking up his life all over again in some sort of vain attempt to get some insurance against the potential pain of "emotional involvement". What he'd said to Molly about being happy just didn't apply anymore, but he wasn't unhappy either, he just had all those uncomfortable emotions under control.

He and Miranda had a calm relationship without surprises, he had never seen her angry with him, or sad or emotional about anything, he had never seen her cry, and although she seemed happy enough with their sex life, well, she certainly didn't seem unhappy, she was never uncontrolled or uninhibited. There had never been a huge amount of sexual tension or chemistry between them, but he hadn't missed any of that until the last few days and now his memory wouldn't let him shut it out, no matter how hard he tried. He was exceedingly fond of Miranda, but was no longer sure that the calm affection that they shared for one another was the best basis for marriage.

-OG-

Ronnie watched Miranda from across the marquee, they hadn't been quite so lucky with the weather this time; it was a cool, grey and damp evening, threatening rain, so that the marquee was packed with the chattering groups of people who had been outside at the previous party, making it steamy hot and stuffier than ever. Ronnie was filled with a vicarious sort of hatred on behalf of her mate, who wasn't there, and Ronnie missed her, there wasn't anyone else she could share the sort of bitchy asides that she could with Molly. Miranda was wearing a slinky pale grey knee length silk dress which had beautiful vibrant pink flowers painted on it and which could only be worn by someone who was not only pencil thin but flat chested as well, together with a little grey shrug that Ronnie would swear was cashmere. The outfit was not only beautiful but quite obviously cost twice as much as the entire contents of her wardrobe, and probably Molly's thrown in as well.

Molly had called her just before she'd left Camden with a last minute instruction that she wasn't to say anything at all to either of them about her, especially not him, and had laughed and said 'thanks but no thanks' when Ronnie had offered to put rat poison in their drinks. She'd then offered to disable him by punching him in the bollocks, which Molly had said she appreciated was a very kind offer, but she would have to turn it down on this occasion, at which point they had both fallen about laughing. She had been true to her word and had scored a date for that evening with some eastern European engineering student called Janesk and had assured Ronnie that he didn't have interesting teeth or bad breath, but she didn't know much about his personality only that he was fit to look at which would do for starters.

"Are you Ronnie?"

She had been aware of him looking around ever since he and Miranda had appeared in the marquee and knew that he was looking to see whether Molly was there, so that she'd wanted to go over and tell him what a stupid fucker he was, that of course Molly wasn't going to be there to help serve Champagne at his engagement party.

"Yep that's me"

"Molly's not here then? I thought she might be"

"Did you? No, she's got something else on tonight" Ronnie wanted to say so much more to this good-looking bastard who had made her best mate cry, including who the hell did he think he was expecting her to be here tonight? But she'd promised faithfully not to say anything like that; although she hadn't promised not to be creative in the reason she gave for Molly's absence "She's out with her bloke, they've got some special do to go to"

"I didn't think she was with anyone"

"Didn't you? Ah, well, she doesn't talk about him much, you know Molls, or at least I presume you do, she likes to keep private things private"

She would have dearly loved to have added 'like the relationship she used to have with you, you tosspot' or 'like going for walks with you in Hyde Park', but knew that she couldn't because it would be breaking confidences, and she'd promised, but she got a huge amount of satisfaction from the unhappy look that passed fleetingly across his face, which, as far as Ronnie was concerned, served him bloody well right.

-OG-

Molly was walking slowly towards her agreed rendezvous with Janesk wondering when it was going to start raining and asking herself what the flaming shit she was doing there, she was not even the tiniest little bit interested in Janesk. She was only there because she'd promised Ronnie that she wouldn't call him and tell him that she'd broken both her legs or given birth unexpectedly or something, and because down in Surrey there was an engagement party going on. Her phone rang as she walked and she prayed it was Janesk calling to cancel so that she could turn round and go home with a clear conscience, but it wasn't, it was Ronnie.

"Yeah, yeah I'm on my way, I promise, I just haven't met up with him yet, anyhow, remind me, why would anyone normal want to spend an evening with me, when I'm quite clearly bloody mental"

"I wasn't checking up on you and any bloke who's not up himself would want to spend an evening with you"

"Thanks, but you bleeding well were checking up on me and it's going to start pissing down any minute. What did you want anyway?"

"Just spoke to lover boy, he asked me where you were, the cheeky fucker"

"What did you say?" Molly couldn't help the small grin that spread itself across her face at the thought that he'd been looking for her.

"I told him you were off having amazingly rampant sex with some bloke you'd met off the internet, what do you think I told him? I told him you were busy tonight, although I wish I'd thought of the internet one earlier"

"Tell him I'm dead, or that I've emigrated or something" Molly sniggered "Tell him I've run off with the bloke off the internet cos he's got money as well as a big dick"

"Has Janesk got money?"

"How the fuck would I know, shouldn't think so for a minute" She giggled "And I don't even want to think about his dick"

-OG-

 **Author's notes: Hope you enjoyed this. I won't be able to update now until after the weekend, it's my other halves birthday, my real one not the one from my parallel universe, so we're going away for a long weekend and he's threatening to divorce me if I take my lap top with me!**


	5. Chapter 5

Three hours later and Molly rang Ronnie knowing that she would be on the finishing stretch of the party and longing to share the high spots of her evening with someone who would find it as funny as she had, although how much of her amusement was a direct consequence of the amount of vodka she'd drunk since she'd got home was debateable. She'd had a sort of paralysis of the facial muscles by the time she'd got on the train home from the amount of fake smiling she'd done at him, he was without doubt one of the most boring fuckers she'd ever been forced to spend an evening with and he'd kept his money in a purse, which was one of the gems she couldn't wait to share with Ronnie.

"Hello, you nearly done yet?"

"Yep, I'm in the van on my way home, what's up, you sound like you're crying?"

"Nah, I'm pissing myself here; I hope you're on hands free"

"Course I am, otherwise I wouldn't have a hand free to hold me fag, would I? What's funny?"

"He had a purse"

"Shit, Molls" Ronnie started to laugh; Molly's giggle was very infectious.

"Yeah, he kept counting out his pennies, I don't think he's got any money Ron, so maybe I won't run off with him after all" She took a deep breath trying to control her laughter "And before you ask, I definitely didn't get a look at his dick. You remember what I said about teeth, well I never noticed in the library when we was chatting and I decided that he'd do, but when he really grins he's got these fangs like Dracula, I kept waiting for him to sink them into me neck all evening"

"Oh shit, he didn't, did he?"

"Nah, he was too busy counting his money in his purse"

"Stop it I'm driving and I'm going to wet myself" She took a deep breath "So, it's my guess that you won't be buying new knickers any time soon"

"Yeah well, maybe not" Molly sniffed and asked the question that was consuming her and was the real reason for the call and the reason Janesk had never stood the slightest chance "Tell me about the party, how did he look? Bleeding over the moon happy I'll bet"

"No, he didn't, he didn't look happy at all, I don't think I saw him really smile once, mind you he didn't look that unhappy either, just sort of nothing really, he's not really an emotional sort of bloke, is he?"

"Nah, guess not"

She wanted to shout, 'Yes, course he bloody is, he just hides it all the time because he hates people to see how emotional he is, thinks that it shows some sort of weakness or something, so he bottles it all up and pretends he doesn't care, but he does, I should know.

-OG-

"Don't do it"

"Why not?"

"You know why not, because you'll get upset all over again and if you see him then you'll fuc… have sex with him and then what? And don't tell me that you won't, because we both know that you will, and he'll still be engaged to bloody Miranda No Tits, won't he? He'll still be marrying her"

"We don't know that, do we?"

"Yes we do, just don't call him back"

"He might not still be engaged, they might have split up or something, maybe that's what he wants to talk to me about"

"Well, let him bloody phone you again then and tell you, and they were still engaged a week ago, weren't they? and they had a shitty party to prove it and remember what you said to me about sharing someone who's already taken?"

"Yeah"

"Sorry babe, I don't mean to ….. you know, put a downer on things, piss on your parade, it's just that I care about you, you know that, and I don't want to see you get messed about by some posh tosser that you once had the hots for, about a hundred years ago. Remember what you said, that he made you feel like you weren't good enough? Well, listen to Auntie Ronnie, he's the one that's not good enough, you don't need someone like him"

"You don't know him"

"No I don't….. Do you?"

Ronnie couldn't help worrying that he'd called Molly as a direct result of her telling him that she'd gone somewhere special with her boyfriend, that the expression she'd seen on his face had been jealousy, but she couldn't tell Molly that without owning up to telling him that she'd got a boyfriend in the first place and insinuating that it was some sort of long standing special relationship, not a casual date with a bloke who kept his money in a purse.

-OG-

For a few days after the party Molly had kept telling herself that he hadn't, apparently, looked ecstatically happy at his engagement, which surely he should have done, then she'd slowly faced the truth that she'd known all along, that just because he hadn't been emotional didn't mean that he wasn't actually potty about her, he could just as easily have been hiding all that behind that bloody poker face of his.

His message had come out of the blue when she was trying hard to get through her reading list for the new term which had started a week ago and for which she'd done absolutely no background preparation at all. His call meant that she'd ended up going over to Camden again instead, something that was fast becoming a habit these days, a habit she was going to have to break, because apart from anything else she couldn't really afford the fares to keep getting there and back.

" _It's Charles; I wondered if I can see you, I need to speak to you. Call me" there_ was a long pause _" please"_

She knew that every word Ronnie had said was right, just as she knew that her mate was spot on about her going to bed with him if she got half a chance, and how that would definitely be a complete and utter mistake. Not only had she had to get over him once before and it had been bloody hard at the time, but he was engaged to someone else this time and she hadn't even given him a single thought for the last year or so. Last time they hadn't got as far as having sex, so she was pretty sure that if she carried on the way she was she was in danger of having to get over him all over again, and if she'd slept with him it would be far, far more difficult than last time.

They'd been reporting on the Today programme on Radio 4 that morning that UK troops were being sent to Syria and her first thought had been whether or not he was going to be deployed and then when she'd got his message, she'd wondered whether or not that was what he was calling her about, and how dangerous was it exactly? a worry that she hadn't had to contend with for four years now and she certainly didn't want to start living with _that_ , especially not over someone who was, apparently, in love with someone else. Ronnie was right, it was more than time to let it go, to let him go, she shouldn't return his call, she shouldn't arrange to see him again and should try very hard to get the calmness back into her life that she'd had before the Brigadier's bloody garden party.

The trouble was that she didn't want to move on in the way that Ronnie kept encouraging her to, she really wasn't interested in a meaningless or loveless shag, she'd tried that when she was eighteen before she'd joined the army, and before she'd been posted to Afghan, and she had no intentions of ever going back there again.

-OG-

The engagement party had been a disaster as far as Charles was concerned, the moment he'd walked into the marquee and looked to see whether Molly was there, he'd woken up to the monumental mistake he was about to make. He couldn't quite believe what a fuckwit he'd been, that he was actually about to screw up Miranda's life as well as his own by marrying her when he had no emotional involvement at all, except for a bit of affection and a bucket load of guilt that he'd let it get as far as this. He couldn't turn round and walk out of the party, that would be unforgivably unkind to her, not to mention incredibly rude to her parents, so he had to go through the motions and deal with the repercussions afterwards.

-OG-

Miranda also hadn't enjoyed the party that she and her mother had worked so hard to make into the perfect celebration because he'd been totally distracted all evening so that she'd known that there was something worrying going on; she was just hoping that whatever it was would disappear by the time he got home from Syria so that they could get going with the wedding plans.

"Tell me, Charles, what on earth is the matter, what was wrong with you tonight?"

"I'm sorry" He took a deep breath "But I think we need to take some more time to think about this, whether it's the right thing for us to be doing"

"Don't be ridiculous, you've just got cold feet about Syria that's all. Everything will be fine when you get back, stop panicking"

"No, that's not it; this has got nothing to do with Syria"

Up until today she'd had this wonderful rosy picture of their future life together which she'd visualised as being very like the one her parents' enjoyed, where they were unfailingly polite and considerate towards each other, without any passionate rows or commotion, and where they lived in some lovely house somewhere in the Home Counties. A marriage which didn't lurch from one drama to the next like so many of her friends and acquaintances and one which didn't include the sort of overtly tactile behaviour which she found exceedingly embarrassing, especially when Charles was there as well.

She felt a sudden burst of anger, an emotion that she normally ruthlessly suppressed, how dare he start expressing doubts about their future like this, he'd been a bit distant for a couple of weeks however much he'd kept denying it and she knew that he'd been getting increasingly irritated with her asking him what the matter was all the time and whether there was something wrong, but she couldn't believe how badly he was behaving tonight. Her parents had just spent a small fortune on a party for them and she'd spent a fortune on a new dress and now here he was saying that he needed more 'time', that he wasn't sure any more that he wanted to get married, so what the hell was she going to say to all her friends and family?

They had never had any real discord before, they had always been very amicable about everything and they'd got engaged because they'd been talking about a future together for months and maybe she'd panicked a bit and accelerated what she saw as inevitable when she'd suddenly begun to sense that his feelings towards her were changing, but she wanted to marry him. He was perfect, everything she'd ever wanted in a husband, tall, much taller than her which was a bonus when you're nearly six foot tall and female, and he made her feel dainty which was a novelty, he was good looking, very civilised and well-spoken and very undemanding, just quietly affectionate.

"What do you expect me to tell people?"

"Whatever you like, I'll go along with whatever you decide or just tell them that you've changed your mind about marrying me"

"And that's it, isn't it Charles? That is it in a nutshell; y _ou've_ changed _your_ mind"

"I'm so sorry"

The guilt he felt about what he'd just done was tempered with this huge sense of relief, she didn't love him any more than he loved her and getting married had to be about the sort of emotion that he'd been so determined to avoid; getting married and knowing that neither of them felt any of it at all would be a recipe for disaster. He had one broken marriage behind him already so he knew how painful that sort of failure was, and at least he'd loved Rebecca when he'd married her. He wished he could explain it to Miranda, tell her why he had to do what he was doing, he was exceeding fond of her and they'd enjoyed each other's company for a long time so that he'd never wanted to hurt her, but he was pretty sure that she wouldn't even begin to understand what it felt like to have that feeling that you can't live without someone.

-OG-

He was lounging back in his chair in his office, rotating a pen between his fingers as he listened to his 2nd Lieutenant and the two platoon Sergeants arguing fiercely about some of the logistical arrangements they had to make, when his phone, which he'd put on the desk, started to vibrate and skid around as the screen lit up indicating an incoming call. He wasn't expecting it to be her, he'd left a voice mail message and a text for her and she hadn't replied to either of them, so he'd given up. He pulled the phone towards him and idly checked the caller's I.D. not anticipating that it would be anything he'd need to deal with straight away so that the call could go to voice mail and he would deal with it later when this meeting was over.

The name on the screen made him sit bolt upright and grab the phone, swiping the answer icon and putting a hand up to the men in his office, indicating that they should stop talking for a second.

"Hello, hold on, I'll just be a second"

He turned to his colleagues and apologised, saying that he really needed to take the call and asking them to leave, saying that he'd give them a shout later when he was free and that they could re-convene. He ignored the raised eyebrows of the 2nd Lieutenant who obviously thought that nothing was quite as important as the discussions that they had been having, something that Charles would normally have 100% agreed with.

He rested his chair back on its back legs and crossed his ankles as he put his feet up on the desk and smiled with anticipation.

"That's better"

"Are you busy?"

"No, well, yes a bit, but it doesn't matter, I'd given up hoping you'd ring me back"

"I can't be on here long, I'm almost out of credit" she lied "What was it you wanted?"

"Just to talk to you, to wish you a Happy Birthday"

"How did you know?"

"What, that it's your birthday? You're not the only one who remembers things"

There was a very long pause when he began to wonder if she'd hung up or if her credit had run out on her phone.

"It's not my birthday till the weekend"

"I know, is your boyfriend taking you somewhere nice"

"What boyfriend?"

"Your mate Ronnie told me about him"

"Ask her then"

"Why?"

"Because she made him up that's why" She giggled "He don't really exist"

"Why would she do that?" He could feel the smirk spreading across his face at what she'd just said then started to laugh.

"You really don't know? She giggled again "Never mind"

"I miss that, you making me laugh"

"Doesn't she make you laugh?" She paused then shook her head at herself; dumb cow that she was, flirting with him wouldn't make things any better at all, especially not drawing attention to the existence of bloody Miranda "Sorry, I shouldn't have asked that Charles, it's none of my business"

"No" He paused "but no she doesn't"

There was another long pause, as Molly suddenly realised exactly why he'd wanted to talk to her and why he'd wished her a happy birthday today and not on her birthday.

"You're being deployed aren't you? You're going to Syria"

"Yip"

"When you going?"

"Thursday"

"Shitting hell, Charles, you will be careful won't you?"

"I'm always careful" She could hear the smile in his voice

"No you're bleeding well not, and I should know if anyone does"

"I will be this time, I promise"

He sounded as though he was promising her, not just promising in general or promising because he was getting married to someone else, and even though she knew it was wishful thinking, she couldn't help smiling to herself.

"How long you going for?"

"Just a short one, three months"

There was another long pause as she heard him take a deep breath.

"Molly, about Miranda …."

"No, don't, I don't want to bloody hear about …"

"Will you shut up and listen for a minute, God, you're so impatient" he paused "Miranda and I are finished, over with, must be the shortest bloody engagement in history"

There was another even longer pause which made him wonder again whether she was still there or had ended the call, as Molly thought about what he'd just said and wondered what he expected her to say to that, and then couldn't for the life of her think of anything appropriate at all.

"Hello, are you still there?"

"Just be careful out there, alright, and don't get yourself bloody well shot or nothing, don't be a bleeding hero, okay?"

"You take care as well, look after yourself"

"Me? I'll be fine, the people I meet don't usually want to kill me, you know, take a machete to me head or shoot me or nothing, thank God"

"I'm glad to hear it"

"Go on, piss off and get back to yelling at people and bossing them poor little sods about, I gotta go, Bye"

He could hear the smile in her voice as she disconnected the call and whispered 'Bye' even though she'd already gone.

-OG-

"You rang him, didn't you?"

"Yeah, sorry"

"Trollop! And you don't have to say sorry to me do you, it's none of my bloody business, is it?" Ronnie handed over an envelope and a small parcel "You'd better have these early then, might come in handy, Happy Birthday"

Molly ripped open the envelope which contained a very 'arty' and expensive looking birthday card with three condoms sellotaped inside; and inside the tissue paper wrapped parcel, a pair of oyster coloured silk knickers.

"Ronnie!" She held up the underwear "They're gorgeous, thank you, and for these, I s'pose" She held up the card with the condoms and giggled.

"The knickers are for you, not for him, and who says I don't do romance?" Ronnie shrugged as they both now giggled "but we don't want any little slip-ups, do we?"

"Look, I know you care about me but I'm not going to need any of this, I'm not going to see him or nothing, I was right, he's going to Syria so he just called to say goodbye"

"Molls, and I know you don't want to hear this but he needs to stop dicking you about, is he with No Tits or not? Did he say? Because it strikes me that he doesn't know what he bleeding does want from one minute to the next and you need a boyfriend, not a sodding train wreck"

"He's not with her anymore, he said so, happy now? And anyway that's got nothing to do with anything; I can't help not wanting him to go out there, can I? It's bloody dangerous and I don't want anything to happen to him"

"Of course you don't"

"Talking of boyfriends, which is something I definitely don't want by the way, what the fuck did you say to him about me and some boyfriend who don't even exist?"

"Can't remember"

"Liar"

"Come on Molls, let's get out of misery central for a bit and go and get pissed"

"What have you got to be miserable about?"

"It's official, it's a drought, three months and not even a hint of any action, and on top of that my best mate is dicking about with the some posh tosspot who doesn't deserve her"

"Do you good to go without for a bit, but Ron, if we go to the pub we're not going to do "Ten Reasons why we've decided he's a Wanker" okay?"

-OG-

Thursday morning, twenty minutes into the first lecture of the day and Molly hadn't yet listened to a single word the lecturer had said, she was far too busy surreptitiously composing and editing a text, which she'd written and deleted several times already in an agony of indecision over whether or not to send it.

-OG-

 **Author's notes: Thank you for your kind reviews and I hope you enjoy this chapter. Thanks for all your good wishes for our weekend break away which was lovely, even managed to get a bit of a tan yesterday, it was a gorgeous day with a wind blowing off the sea so we are definitely a bit sunkissed.**

 **I know that these chapters are getting longer and longer so I have to keep telling myself that I need to keep a better eye on the word count at the bottom of the screen when my fingers are getting carried away**


	6. Chapter 6

She checked her watch again, as she pictured him on the tarmac at Brize Norton, then made a decision, took a deep breath and pressed 'send'. She quickly turned her phone off; she didn't expect a reply but she didn't want to sit there watching out for one either.

He stood, stern faced and composed for the official photograph and then felt the phone in his pocket vibrate against his thigh.

" _Come home_ _safe and don't threaten to lob anyone out of the plane. M xx"_

He smiled, then gave a little chuckle and composed a reply, stopped, thought about what he'd just written, read it again, hesitated, then deleted it, he couldn't send that, he wasn't anywhere near sure how she'd feel about it if he did.

-OG-

"Happy Birthday"

Molly smiled sweetly at the scruffy looking bloke with long hair tied back in a straggly pony tail and an earring who'd just put a drink in front of her and tried desperately hard to remember what the fuck his name was. It was Jake or Joseph or something like that and he'd been invited by Ronnie to the party in the pub and Molly couldn't work out whether he was supposed to be there for her or whether Ronnie really was as desperate as she'd said, but if he was supposed to be hers, then it wasn't going to be his lucky night. She'd been drinking for hours and knew she was going to regret it big time in the morning, but it didn't seem to matter how much alcohol she poured down her neck or how pissed she got, she couldn't stop thinking about what he might be doing and wondering if he'd thought about her at all today, thought about it being her birthday.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, course, 'ere Ron, what is his bleeding name again?"

Molly nodded her head and indicated the scruffy supplier of drinks who was standing and smiling at them, fortunately just out of earshot.

"Jed" Ronnie said then hesitated slightly "Or Jeff or something like that"

"Nearly right then, I thought he was maybe Jake" Molly thought for a second and began to laugh "Or John"

"Are you pissed?"

"Not pissed enough to be that desperate"

"No, neither am I"

They looked at one another, then at the unfortunate Josh who was still standing there watching them with an expectant half-smile on his face, a smile that was fading rapidly as he watched them start to cackle with laughter.

"You're not sitting here worrying about bloody lover boy are you?"

"Don't know what you're talking about"

"No, course you don't"

For a moment she had considered carrying on pretending that she didn't know what or who Ronnie was talking about, but she knew she was probably too pissed to carry it off and anyway this was Ronnie, who sometimes resembled a bloody mind reader. She knew that she was beginning to be pissed enough to be feeling sorry for herself and should either stop drinking or have another large one. He had been gone for three days and hadn't replied to her text and it already felt like a lifetime and she badly wanted to stop the feelings that she'd had most of the day when the kids had done a little tea party for her and everyone had given her cards and little presents, except Nan who'd given her some lovely underwear which was almost certainly nicked. She was thoroughly fed up with being 24 years old and still sleeping in the bottom bunk in a room festooned with fairy lights or on a small hard single bed in her mate's spare room in Camden and she wanted to stop all these feelings of 'might have been' and 'should have been' that kept popping up in her brain.

Lying in Ronnie's single bed after the party in the pub and wishing the room would stop swinging round, Mollie started to cry. She cried because it was six years exactly since the night of her eighteenth when she'd got drunk and puked outside an Army Recruitment Office, and nothing in her life had changed. She cried because she was 24 and back living at home, she cried because there was no-one in the bed with her to put their arms round her and hold her, she cried because he hadn't answered her text and had been gone three days and she cried because she was completely wasted and knew she was going to feel like shit in the morning.

-OG-

It was just after midnight in Syria, which meant it was ten o'clock in the UK and that she would still be in the pub for at least another hour or so if that's she was celebrating her birthday, and he was pretty sure that it would be. He'd just written the same text message as the one he'd written when he was at Brize, with the addition of 'Happy Birthday', when there was a burst of gunfire outside and a whole lot of confused sounding shouting, and then more shots. Once he'd sorted out the over anxious and over imaginative squaddies who were on night patrol, and reassured them that they were seeing things but that they'd have been in even deeper shit if they'd ignored what they thought they'd seen and it was a real insurgency, he went back to the miserable, lonely and very basic quarters he'd been allocated, picked up his phone and re-read the message he'd written, thought about it for a few minutes, then telling himself not to be so bloody ridiculous, deleted it.

-OG-

"YOU'RE FUCKING LATE, Molls, why the FUCK are you so LATE?"

"Sorry Ron, got held up at College, I'm here now, sorry"

"Why the fuck isn't your fucking phone working? I tried calling you and I weren't the only one"

"Out of credit and out of money, the cash point will eat my card if I try and get any more, sorry" She pulled a contrite face "Who else wanted me?"

"Who do you think?"

"Haven't got a bleeding clue" She lied at the same time as crossing her fingers, the three months had been up for several days now, something she had been aware of even though she was no longer constantly checking the calendar and counting the days.

A cold wet December afternoon and Molly had just arrived at the warehouse in Camden from Elephant and Castle, where her last lecture of the day had run over, making her very late, mainly because one of the keen bastards had asked loads of questions at the end of the lecture to show the lecturer just how bloody keen they were when everyone else was ready to sod off, it was Friday after all, and they were all looking daggers at the arsehole who was showing off and cutting into valuable drinking time. Molly was especially keen to get away, she was down to do a waitressing gig and was desperate for the money, it was almost Christmas and she was now continually spending money that she didn't have just to live, never mind Christmas, so that she kept expecting the bank to refuse her card. She daren't even try the ATM again in case it swallowed it because it had told her to piss off the last time she'd tried to get some cash.

Not only that, but her phone had run out of credit days ago which meant that she couldn't let Ronnie know that even though she was running late she was definitely going to show up, so that she was a bit scared in case Ronnie replaced her even though she'd never given her the slightest reason to suspect that she wouldn't show up in time for anything where she'd promised to work. At the end of the day, even though Ronnie was a really good friend, they were best mates, and even though Ronnie knew how poor she was and how much she needed the money, she had a business to run and needed the waitress cover at this party tonight.

The three months since Charles had gone to Syria had been uneventful, she'd restricted herself to watching one news broadcast a day, unless there was a report of casualties when she'd found it impossible to stop looking at the news app on her phone and had experienced one almost heart stopping moment of fear when they'd talked about a Captain getting killed, before she'd remembered that he was a Major now and not a Captain anymore, and had then felt very guilty for being so relieved that it wasn't him.

After a few weeks the raw edge of worry had started to heal over and her life had started to be much calmer and more controlled than it had been for those few weeks in the summer. She hadn't heard from him since he went and slowly she began to stop wanting or expecting to see a text or a message from him and to give up hope and accept that her life had gone back to normal, the way it used to be before he'd re-appeared. She'd been on a work experience with a section of the Think Ahead Project which was specialising in helping people with housing issues when they were already struggling with their mental health and knew now, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was totally right for her, she'd loved every minute of it.

There was three months left to go before she graduated and she was desperate to get a place on the project. She hoped that she'd done well enough when she was shadowing, her mentor had been very encouraging in his feedback, but, as always, it was in the lap of the gods, with her degree and whether there were vacancies and a whole lot of other variables, including funding, so she couldn't get her hopes up too much, too soon. At the moment even having a paid job seemed a lifetime away.

"Go on then, what you waiting for? Go and bloody phone him, use the office one but don't be long, we got to go in a minute and you're not changed yet"

-OG-

"James"

"Hello"

"Christ, at last, where the fuck have you been and where are you now?"

"Whatever happened to 'Hello Molly, how are you'?"

"Sorry, Hello, how are you? but where the fuck are you? I've been ringing you for days"

"I've got no credit on my phone, and I'm at Ronnie's because I'm working tonight"

"Shit, do you have to?"

"Yes I do, I need the money, I need to top up my phone and I'm totally skint, I'm a poor student, remember?"

"I'll top it up"

"No"

"Why not?"

"I'll do it later when I get paid"

"When can I see you? tomorrow?"

"I dunno, what for? I mean, what do you want to see me for? and where are you anyhow?"

"I'm in barracks, my flat's got tenants, so I need something to look forward to, to get me out of here, anyway, and I just want to see you. How about tomorrow evening, we could go out for a meal or a drink or something?"

"I could meet you for lunch, but its Saturday night and it's nearly Christmas, so I'm working again tomorrow night, and I need the money and now I've gotta go"

"Shit" He could hear Ronnie yelling at her telling her to hurry up and get changed because they were almost ready to leave "Same place as before? 1.00? Inside this time?"

"Okay"

"Molly, it's lovely to hear your voice"

"See you tomorrow"

Her face was wreathed in smiles as she changed so that Ronnie laughed and muttered something about needing someone to pass her a sick bag and could she please stop looking so bleeding pleased with herself because there was nothing more annoying than a smug smirk on someone else's gob.

-OG-

The freezing rain was almost horizontal from a dark and gloomy sky as it bounced off the tables and chairs on the terracing outside the Serpentine bar and there wasn't a soul walking along the tow path or anywhere near the lake as Charles sat and alternated between looking out at the rain pocked water and watching the entrance waiting for her. She stood and watched him for a minute, feeling the water drip off her soaking wet hair and run down her neck, he obviously hadn't realised that there was more than one entrance to the bar and restaurant and he was watching the wrong one. He was visibly nervous, drumming his fingers on the table and constantly checking his watch.

She gave her soaking raincoat, with the deeply inadequate hood which fell down all the time, to the waiter to find somewhere to hang it so that it could drip and then took a deep breath and went and tapped him on the shoulder so that he jumped out of his skin, so fixed had been his attention on the other entrance door.

"God, where did you spring from?"

"Hello to you too, I came in through the bleeding door" She laughed "you was watching the wrong one"

"You look beautiful" He stood up and went to kiss her on her cheek.

"No I don't, I look like a bloody drowned rat, I'm going to the loo see if they've got one of them hot air dryer thingies, try and dry me hair a bit"

"I'll ask them if they've got a towel or something, and you still look beautiful even if you are a drowned rat"

"No, its okay, I'll manage, and thanks, I think"

He watched her walk back towards him across the half empty restaurant and couldn't control the huge smile that had spread across his face; she'd tied her wet hair back into a small curly ponytail, but there were damp tendrils of hair escaping and framing her face. She looked exactly the same as the Molly Dawes of his memory, and with her hair pulled back off her face like that she looked exactly the same as she had in Afghan, so that his stomach churned with the type of emotions he'd thought he didn't ever want to feel again.

"So, you look okay, still in one piece, I see. What was it like?"

"Pretty boring most of the time, bloody frightening sometimes and the food and accommodation were total shit"

"Business as usual then" They both laughed.

"Yup" he was still smiling "What about you, has everything been okay?"

"Yeah, well, apart from being skint of course, mind you that's nothing new"

They both looked down at the menus while flicking glances at each other and smiling awkwardly whenever they caught each other's eye, as Molly felt the adrenalin induced butterflies begin to flutter deep in her stomach. They ordered their lunch without really paying much attention to what they'd chosen, Molly wasn't even sure she'd be able to eat any of it, she wasn't at all hungry, her mouth went dry and her throat closed at the thought.

"Charles, can I ask you something?" There was something she wanted to, needed to, know, they'd talked about her last time they'd been here but not a word about him.

"Of course"

"What made you stay in? you know, after … everything"

He smiled ruefully at her "I think I told you once, the army was my whole life before I met you, and then it was my whole life again"

"I'm sorry"

"No, don't be, it made me have to get my shit together, to work really hard at getting fit and back to where I had to be to carry on, to prove to everyone, you know the doctors and the physios and so on, that they were wrong and I did it, and then there was all that bollocks with Smurf" He smiled at her again "I got that all wrong as well"

"Sorry"

"Stop saying you're sorry"

"Sorry" They both laughed again as he leaned across the table and took hold of her hand, kissing the back of her knuckles and went to say something as the waiter arrived forcing them to sit back to allow him to start fussing around with putting plates of food in front of them and unwrapping cutlery from napkins and putting drinks on the table and checking condiments, so that Molly wanted to tell him to please piss off. She pushed some of the food around on her plate and ate a tiny piece of a chip, chewing it and then washing it down with a mouthful of coke, she had decided against alcohol again. She tried to make a determined effort to eat some of the meal which she hoped he was paying for, the money she'd made working last night had paid to top up her phone and would clear a miniscule fraction of what she owed the bank, but her card would probably be refused and cut up in front of them if she tried to pay for anything with it.

She managed about a third of her meal before admitting defeat and put her cutlery side by side on the plate.

"Not hungry?" He nodded towards her plate.

"Sorry" She shook her head as she spoke, making him roll his eyes and then raise his eyebrows to the ceiling as he laughed.

"For fuck's sake, stop saying that you're sorry"

"Sorry"

He laughed again and shook his head, then looked around the room at the white twinkling fairy lights and the four huge Christmas trees, one in each corner of the room, all decked out with silver baubles and white lights, then looked at her and smiled.

"I'd forgotten it was nearly Christmas when we were in Syria, you know how you lose track in these places, are you staying at home?"

"Yeah, you? going home to Bath?"

He nodded as they both remembered the day at Camp Bastion when he'd invited her to spend Christmas in Bath with him, and what had happened immediately afterwards and what a catalyst that had been in the chain of events that had led them to be here today. They both realised just what a long time ago it all was and how much water had passed under the bridge since then. He took a deep breath and took hold of her hand again, abandoning his own meal half eaten.

"When we were here that day in the summer, I thought, no I was completely bloody convinced, that you and I could just sit out there on that terrace with a drink and have a nice 'ex-colleagues getting together and catching up' sort of chat, I was so fucking smug … and so completely wrong, wasn't I?" He didn't wait for an answer before going on "By the time we'd walked across the park and I'd kissed you goodbye I knew that I was either still in love with you from the first time round, or that I'd fallen in love with you all over again"

"I don't understand"

"What?"

"You just said you knew you still loved me….so you went home and asked Miranda to marry you"

-OG-

 **Author's notes: Thank you for all your lovely comments, hope you enjoy this.**


	7. Chapter 7

He sat and looked at her with a confused expression on his face as though he didn't understand what she'd just said, didn't know exactly what she was getting at, then raised his hands and his eyebrows in an unspoken question.

"I mean, how did that work Charles, telling yourself that you still loved me and then going home and asking her to bloody marry you? What about me? How do you think I felt when you did that?"

"Molly, I'm sorry, but I didn't know that anything I did would matter to you, I mean, why on earth would I think that anything I did was …? "

He still had the same puzzled expression on his face as he looked at her, and lifted one hand to indicate that he didn't know what she was talking about, and then rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, a sure sign that something was worrying him as he started trying to explain.

"Before, you know, before it all went to shit, you know that I adored you, I told you all that last time we were here, you were my little Molly, well you'll always be a half pint" he smiled at her "but I didn't mean that, I meant that you made me feel like, I don't know, some kind of bloody superhero, like I could walk on water, as if I was perfect, apart from being too much of a bloody coward to tell you about Rebecca and Sam of course, then when we met here last summer, it was different, you were different. You looked just the same and you sounded just the same and we sat here and we had a drink and a long chat and I knew that all the time we were talking you were wishing you were somewhere else, anywhere else but here with me. I hadn't seen you for a long time, but I found I could still read you, still knew what you were thinking, I suppose I still knew you well enough to know that"

He took another deep breath and started fiddling with his watch while he avoided her eyes.

"What you're trying to say is that I was different because you wasn't my boss anymore, but that isn't true. I didn't love you because you was the boss, or because you was much older than me, or any of that bollocks, I just loved you and yes, I wanted to get away last time we was here, but it was because I was worried that I didn't know what to say to you about all the shit and the way I fucked things up"

"Molly, it felt as though you were all 'sorted out', in control of what you were doing and where you were going with your life …. and I ended up telling you all sorts of shit that I didn't mean to, that I probably shouldn't have, and you kept having a quick look at your watch to see how soon you could get away. Then we walked across to the road and I kissed you goodbye and you went off home, without looking back at me once. I know you didn't because I stood and watched you go"

"I'm sorry"

"Stop saying you're bloody sorry" he pulled a face "I know I was a total dick but I thought I needed to try and forget all about you all over again, and it was hard enough doing that the first time round. I didn't ask Miranda to marry me, but I did just sort of let it happen, let her go on with the assumption that that's what was going to happen, that that's where we were heading. We'd been talking about, I suppose you'd call it the future …..….. well, all sorts of stuff … for a while before I saw you at that party and I thought that it was what I wanted, that I needed to have someone in my life so that I wasn't on my own, someone who was company but without any of the emotional stuff. It was all absolute bollocks of course, I didn't love her and she didn't love me, so how the hell was that going to work? After you left that afternoon, when I stood and watched you walk away, I wanted to run after you and stop you, and tell you that I thought we were making a bloody huge mistake, well that I was anyway, but you went off home or wherever and you didn't look back, so then as hard as I tried, I just couldn't stop thinking about you. You were there in my bloody head all the time, I knew that I loved you, that I've always loved you, and that in four years nothing whatsoever had changed"

"I wish you had run after me, I didn't look back because I thought you would have already gone, well, back to her, and I didn't want to see it, same as I didn't want to be anywhere near your party"

"I didn't know. I didn't think you'd want me to run after you because I didn't think you cared, I thought we were well and truly over, finished, well I thought you were glad to get away from me that afternoon, but it didn't feel _over_ to me. Then, I don't think it ever will, in fact I know it won't. I honestly didn't think it would matter to you if you were at that god-awful party, in fact I was looking for you, I'd begun to hope that you would be there so that I could see you and talk to you, and ask you if there was any chance of seeing you again and I wanted to explain that the bloody engagement wasn't going to happen either way"

"When did you know that I cared, that it did matter to me?"

"Well, I began to wonder a little bit when your mate Ronnie was more than a bit shitty at the party, she kept looking daggers at me and then told me that you were out with your boyfriend, mind you I didn't know she'd made him up at that point"

"Well, to be fair, I was actually out with a bloke, he just wasn't my boyfriend, he was a casual date and it was because I was upset about you getting engaged. Anyway, you were bloody lucky that being a bit shitty was all she was doing, her first plan was to put rat poison in your drink, then she wanted to punch you hard in the bollocks"

"Lovely" They both laughed as Charles grimaced.

"When were you sure? about me caring I mean"

"When you asked me whether Miranda made me laugh, and even then I wasn't absolutely sure, it was only when I got your text at Brize ….."

"Muppet! I bloody cried buckets when I heard you'd got yourself engaged to her. I hated you there for a bit, I wanted to beat you round the head and then beg you not to marry her"

"I wish you had"

"And another thing, why the fuck didn't you answer my text when you got it? Or even when you was out in Syria? I kept looking and hoping and I never heard a word from you all the time you was away"

"I did"

"No you bloody didn't, well I never got it if you did"

"No, I deleted it. I was going to send you the same one on your birthday too, then I deleted that one as well"

"How the bloody hell was I supposed to know that? I cried on my birthday because I never heard from you, or I might possibly have been crying because I was totally wasted" she giggled "I'm not sure now, but as far as I knew you went out there and that was it, not a bleeding word"

"I'm sorry, I was worried that you'd tell me to piss off if I sent it, or refuse to talk to me ever again"

"Why, what did it say?"

"It just said I love you, Dawsey"

"I would have sent you one back saying that I'd already told you not to call me Dawsey" She smiled at him, and then started to giggle again as the happiness welled up inside her "then I would have sent you another one saying I love you too"

"Do you?" his face was wreathed in a matching huge smile as he kissed the back of her knuckles where he was still holding her hand.

"Course I do, I don't think I ever stopped loving you"

"Let's get out of here"

"Good idea. Where shall we go?"

"I don't know, somewhere, anywhere where I can kiss you"

"Ah, well that might be a bit of a problem, Boss." She looked out of the window "It's pissing down out there so a nice walk in the park isn't on, and I'm sort of homeless, unless you want to go to east Ham and sit in my mum's front room and we can watch tele with the kids and mum and dad and me Nan, while they all gawp at you, and that might not gonna be the best plan if you want to kiss me. You're living in barracks and I'm not sneaking in there, and this is Saturday and it's nearly Christmas and we're in London, so good luck with finding a hotel room, there won't be any for love or money, except for the scuzzy ones what rent rooms out by the hour, and we ain't going to one of them"

"Did you just call me Boss?"

"Yeah, thought it'd remind you of …. things, show you that I still think you're a superhero ….. or something"

"It's the something that worries me"

Molly grinned at him and ignored his comment. "We could always go to the pictures, sit in the back row and neck like a couple of teenagers"

"I don't believe this, I've got a bloody flat in Ash that cost me a sodding fortune but the fucking tenants won't be moving out till the end of the month" he rubbed his hand across the back of his neck and bit his bottom lip as he looked at her, then smiled "so it looks like the pictures it is then"

"Where's Ash"

"Near Aldershot"

"Come on then, I tell you what, we'll go to Camden"

"Is that a good idea? Your mate doesn't like me very much, does she?"

"What makes you think that?" Molly giggled.

"She's pretty bloody fierce, well she was yesterday when I rang her because I couldn't get hold of you"

"She was most likely just looking out for me that's all, she thinks you're a bit of a tosser what's too good looking for his own good and too posh as well, and she's worried that you'll mess me about, and most probably hurt me"

"That is not going to happen, anyway, why didn't you tell her that it was _you_ that left _me_ last time?"

"Don't make no difference as far as Ron's concerned, it's always the bloke's fault"

"Let's get the bill and get out of here"

"Um, sorry but I'll have to owe you my half of the bill, they'll cut my bloody card up if I try and use it"

He pretended to look concerned, then shook his head and seeing the colour starting to creep up her neck as she began to blush; he gave her a teasing smile and kissed the back of her hand again without breaking their steady eye contact for a second.

"You'd better hope that they let you do the washing up then?"

"Bastard"

"Calling me names won't get your share of the bill paid" He carried on smirking at her over the top of her hand which he was kissing repeatedly.

"I'll think of something to make it worth your while"

"Oh well that's more like it"

"Oi"

-OG-

"I didn't think that you'd mind"

Molly and Charles had just gone through the door into the main warehouse which was a hive of frantic activity and appetising smells and Ronnie had pulled her to one side with raised eyebrows as she looked at Charles standing off to one side looking as if he wished the floor would open up and swallow him.

"Wouldn't mind what?"

"If we carried on having our little chat here, in the office or somewhere" Molly put her head on one side and put her hands together as if she was pleading or begging "I'm bleeding homeless and we can't go and sit on a park bench or nothing, it's pissing down out there and it's bloody freezing"

"Oh, go on then, but not the office, I don't want you giving the lads any ideas" She smiled at Charles over Molly's shoulder "Go on up to the flat, only not my bed, okay?"

"Ronnie! and thanks. But what makes you think the lads don't have any sort of ideas anyway? I've seen the way they look at you"

"Are you trying to make me change my mind and throw you out of here?"

"Nah" Molly kissed her cheek and grabbed Charles' hand pulling him towards the back corner of the warehouse where the staircase went up to the flat door which was standing wide open.

-OG-

They stood facing each other in the dusty, newspaper strewn lounge holding hands and staring into each other's eyes without saying a word, each waiting for the other to say something first.

"Say something or do something" Molly was smiling as she whispered it.

"Nope, you first" Charles leaned forward and put his forehead against hers then closed his eyes for a second and took a deep and slightly shuddering breath, as he moved his hands up to cradle her face, very much as he'd done in the hospital ward after Sohail had been rushed away for treatment; he moved his thumbs up and stroked her cheekbones even though there were no tears there this time, "Kiss me"

"No, you first, you kiss me first"

He moved his hands down again and cupped her face then gently touched her lips with his, broke away and looked at her face as her tongue flickered across her lips and she licked the corner of her mouth, her eyes beginning to close in anticipation.

"Look at me Molly" His voice was gruff and soft and breathless as she obeyed him and opened her eyes, to stare into his which were so close they looked huge and gentle and full of emotion, then tilted her head back slightly and smiled up at him, a lazy sexy smile, as she moved her lips up towards his in invitation.

"I've made mistakes my whole bloody life, I made a huge mistake when I let you go the first time, when I let you go and I didn't come looking for you and left a whole load of unfinished business between us and I nearly made the same mistake this time, nearly let you go again, not running after you, but I love you, I love you more now than I did five minutes ago and I'm going to love you even more in five minutes time, and probably every five minutes for the rest of my life, the rest of our lives"

He bent his head and kissed her feeling her lips part under the pressure of his lips as she started to kiss him back, and then the kisses got deeper and harder and more and more passionate and intense as they cuddled and kissed as if they were glued together and would have to be prised apart, pulled off one another, until they were interrupted by a sudden loud mock coughing sound as Ronnie pretended to clear her throat and stood in the doorway with her eyes screwed tightly shut, which made them spring apart. Charles immediately grabbed Molly and pulled her back in front of him. He had absolutely no wish to acquaint Ronnie with the physical evidence of what the storm of the last ten minutes or so had done to him.

"I don't suppose you want to work tonight, do you?"

"Yeah, course I will, I've got to Ron, I need the money you know that"

"No you don't, I'll pay the bank" Charles tightened his arms round her.

"No"

"Oh go on I suppose it's not that big a bash, we'll manage without you and we'll call it a Christmas bonus, and it's not as though you'll be much fucking use to me or anyone else in this frame of mind is it? But don't you bloody dare tell the rest of them, they'll all expect a sodding bonus if you do. Have this one on me"

"Thanks Ron, I love you, although you might want to think about your wording a bit there" Mollie giggled and then smiled gratefully at her friend, who also started giggling as she realised what she'd just said. Molly would have gone across and hugged her but Charles still had a very tight hold with his arms round her waist, stopping her from moving away from him, and she had only just realised why he was holding her so firmly in front of him like a human shield, even though she wasn't actually touching his body.

"Just don't forget what I said"

"No I won't"

"See you later then, bye Charles; see you later if you're still here"

"He will be"

-OG-

"What is it you're not allowed to forget, what did you have to promise Ronnie?"

"That we wouldn't use her bed"

"Molly!"

"Well, you asked, and don't look at me like that, this is Ronnie we're talking about and she never gets embarrassed about nothing. She's an incredibly good mate"

"Yeah I can see that, and who said anything about her being embarrassed? I'm the one who's embarrassed" He turned her round so that she was facing him again and smirked as he looked down into her eyes "Now come here, where were we?" He started kissing her the way they'd been kissing before Ronnie had appeared and then pulled her body against his so that she could feel everything he'd been determined to hide from Ronnie.

She giggled "That don't feel much like you're embarrassed to me"

-OG-

 **Author's notes: Thanks for your reviews, I love you all to bits. I know that lots of you felt that he was a compete shit who needed a slap when he got engaged to Miranda when Molly still loved him, but of course he didn't know how she felt and he is a bloke after all!**


	8. Chapter 8

"Have they gone? Or can we shut the door or something?"

"We can go to bed if you like"

"I thought you promised Ronnie…"

"Not hers, Muppet, mine, well the one I sleep in when I'm here, it's a bit cosy, just a single…"

He stopped her saying anything else by the simple act of kissing her, then picked her up into his arms and stood waiting for directions with his eyebrows raised as a question.

-OG-

Sprawling on top of him Molly was butterfly kissing his prominent jaw line with its five o'clock shadow, then pulled her head back slightly and looked up at his face and smiled at his look of complete and utter contentment as she tried to hold onto his wrists to stop his hands which had started to wander again, then gave up and let him run his finger-tips lightly up and down her back on skin which was suddenly so super sensitive that it felt almost ticklish. The bed was not only a narrow single but was actually a child's bed and so was far too short for him so that his feet hung over the end, and stuck out of the bottom of the duvet which Molly was struggling to pull right over their naked bodies without changing her position on top of him. Ronnie's flat was not only far too hot and sauna-like in the summer but was arctic in the winter, so much so that there was often frost on the inside of the windows in the mornings, but cuddling up to each other under the duvet while they listened to the rain beating on the roof made it feel perfect as far as they were concerned.

"I think we should buy a bed the same as this for the flat, maybe a bit longer, but definitely single like this one"

"I was thinking you'd be more for one of them super king size jobbies"

"No, this is cosy, and you can't get away from me, so that even if we have a fight you're going to have to sleep on top of me, there's no room for anything else" He laughed at the expression on her face "You are going to move in and live in the flat with me, aren't you? as soon as the tenants push off"

"You're being a bit previous, aren't you?"

"No" He stopped stroking her back and thought for a minute "well maybe, but it doesn't feel like that and it's not like we've only just started seeing each other is it? We've known each other for a lifetime already and we may have only just started being together but I know I want to live with you, that I still want you to be the last thing I see every night and the first thing I see every morning, that'll never change"

"No"

"No, what?"

"No, I can't just come and live with you"

"Why not?"

"Because I still need to get to lectures every day and to get here to do my shifts for Ronnie"

"We have trains that go in and out of London, I got on one this morning" His voice was full of teasing laughter "They run every day" He paused and frowned "and anyway that sounds like excuses to me. Do you actually mean that you don't want to live with me?"

"I can't afford to, I'm a poor student, remember? I've got no bleeding money"

"You don't need any money"

"What, you think I'm gonna live off you? I don't think so"

"Why are you so bloody difficult? You wouldn't let me to top up your phone and you didn't want me to pay the bank, and now you don't want to share my flat, to live with me, and I want you to, I want to look after you, so why won't you let me?"

"I dunno, I can't get me head around it, it just feels all wrong"

"Molly, you let Ronnie treat you, so why not me?"

"I'm sorry, it just feels …. I don't need no-one to look after me, I can look after meself" She paused and shrugged "Okay, so sometimes I'm a bit crap at it, but I manage in the end"

"What do you think would have happened if everything had worked out for us the first time round? If we'd been together for the last four years?"

"I dunno, I've never even thought about it" She lied.

"I do, I know. We'd be living, oh, I don't know where, probably somewhere in the suburbs I expect, and we'd most likely have at least a couple of kids by now that would be running you ragged, and I'd go off to work every day and wash the bloody car on Sunday mornings and we wouldn't be arguing about who pays for what, would we? We'd just be sharing what we'd got, so why can't we share now?"

"You made that sound like we've had a bloody lucky escape, mate"

"Well, I didn't mean to. Look, just think about it, you don't have to decide right now"

"Oi, what you doing?" She tried to grab his hand as he flipped her over onto her back and then half lay on top of her as he began to tap his fingers lightly to caress her from her collar bone down to her hip and back up again, then bent his head and started kissing a trail down her neck to her breasts at the same time as holding her still by resting his hand on her hip. He unfastened his lips from her nipple and gave her a wicked grin.

"I'm seeing if I can persuade you to change your mind"

She arched her back up towards him, put her hand up to the back of his head and pulled it down so that he took her nipple back between his teeth.

"Keep trying, in fact you can try a bit harder if you like"

-OG-

The headlights from the van swept across the ceiling as Mollie opened her eyes and fumbled for the bedside lamp then changed her mind and just sat up, shivering in the cold air as she emerged from the warm fug of his body and the arm that was holding her close to him under the duvet.

She slowly and gently lifted the arm that was across her and slid out from under it, being very careful not to disturb him as he slept on, oblivious, and she got out of the bed and grabbed her clothes off the floor. She threw them over her arm so that she could get dressed on the landing before going down to help Ronnie unload and sort out the debris from the party; she felt that it was the least she could do in the circumstances and she also knew just how tired Ronnie would be by now.

"You didn't need to get up and help me; I take it you were tucked up in bed"

"Yeah, but its okay, you're welcome"

"I would have thought you'd have been shagged out by now"

"Ronnie!"

"Sorry. Where is he now? Has he gone?"

"No he's upstairs asleep"

"Hope you're being safe"

"Course we are, stop worrying about me"

Although it had stopped raining it was bitterly cold and damp as they sorted waste into food and plastic and paper and chucked it in the relevant bins, while Molly tried hard not to shiver; she hadn't wanted to put the lights on to find a warm sweater or fleece or something in case she woke Charles up, and she was now deeply regretting it.

"He asked me to move in with him"

"Course he did, are you going to?"

The two girls were sitting in the grubby and untidy lounge of the flat, Ronnie didn't think much of doing housework, she saw it as a complete waste of her 'down' time because it didn't stay 'done', so she only ever did the absolute essentials and concentrated on keeping the food preparation areas of the warehouse spotless. They were drinking hot chocolate, Ronnie because she was tired and hungry but didn't fancy anything to eat and Molly because she was frozen stiff and also hadn't eaten much all day.

"Nah, don't think so"

"Why not? I would have thought you'd have jumped at the chance; you're potty enough about him aren't you? Well you were, oh, shit, does that mean he's crap in bed?"

"Ronnie! No, he's anything but crap, not that that's got anything to do with you, you nosy cow. And it's got nothing to do with me loving him n' that, it's a whole load of other stuff, I mean, it's too soon and I wanna finish me course and I haven't got enough money to live out there anyway, and he's in the army Ron, what happens if he gets posted to bleeding Catterick next week, or some other shit-hole that's a boil on the bum of the world, I just don't think it's the right thing for me to do right now"

"Have you told him?"

"Yeah, I don't know if he believed me, but he wasn't exactly thrilled"

-OG-

Chares woke up when a door banged somewhere in the building and as usual he was instantly wide awake, years of army training meant there was no period of semi-wakefulness between sleeping and waking, but it took him a few seconds to orientate himself as to where he was and what he was doing there. Molly had vanished from the bed and as he started to get up to go and look for her he heard the murmur of voices and realised that Ronnie was home and that they were in the lounge next door chatting, so he lay back and waited for her to come back to bed; there was no way he was going in there for a cosy three way chat with Ronnie.

He was just drifting back off to sleep when she tip-toed in and stripped off her clothes, dropping them on the floor, totally unaware that he was watching her in the glow of the street light through the thin curtains through eyes that were half closed, or that he was waiting for her to slip back into the bed before he spoke or did anything else to show that he wasn't asleep. She slipped under the duvet and spooned her cold body against his warm back, there was very little room to lay any other way, and put her freezing feet against his warm legs, then put one arm round him, tucking her other cold hand between the warmth of her thighs, getting comfortable and ready to go back to sleep. He moved the hand that was cuddling him down to his groin to cup him, listening to and loving her quiet giggle as his body instantly reacted to her and she realised that he was wide awake. He pulled her on top of him as he turned over onto his back, her head tucked under his chin.

"Sorry, did I wake you up?"

"No I was already awake, but you can wake me up like that any time you like"

She moved her body so that she was pressing against his erection which was trapped against her stomach.

"We can't, Dawsey, we've run out"

"That was piss poor planning Major, mind you, if you bloody call me Dawsey again you won't need another condom"

"I didn't know I was going to get this lucky, did I?"

"If you look in that drawer next to your side of the bed you'll find a birthday card, look inside it, but don't ask"

-OG-

Almost a year on from the Brigadier's garden party and it was another warm, bright and sunny day with just a few wisps of white clouds as Molly stood and looked at the crowds of guests at the Regimental Family Day. Lots of men in fatigues and women in bright summer dresses with hordes of excited children tearing around and babies in buggies and the smell of burgers and frying onions together with the tinny noise of tannoy announcements and loud music as she scoped the crowd looking for a very tall, dark and familiar soldier who was supposed to be meeting her here by the children's merry-go-round.

It had been more than six months since they'd first got together and Molly was still living a semi-nomadic life, although she was no longer spending the majority of her nights in the bottom bunk in a bedroom at her family's flat in east Ham, she still stayed there sometimes but very, very occasionally now that she had finished her degree and had joined the ranks of the gainfully employed. She spent a lot of her working week living with Ronnie, helping her out by paying rent and she still did the odd waitressing shift, although mainly to help Ronnie out when she was struggling and needed someone, rather than the other way round. Most weekends she spent in Ash with Charles at his flat, except when Ronnie was having a staffing crisis, but so far she'd resisted all his efforts to get her to move in permanently, so that he had all but stopped mentioning it now.

It had been Ronnie and her flat that she had fled to when she'd had the devastating news that she'd been unsuccessful in her application to join the Think Ahead Project, the vacancy they did have was filled by someone who'd got a 1st and not a 2.2 like she had and it had been two days before she'd even told Charles what had happened. Her old feelings of not being quite good enough had returned with a vengeance so that she didn't want him to know that she was an epic fail again, which she now had to admit had been totally unfair on him; he'd been just as devastated for her as she was for herself. Getting a job in Camberwell based at the Maudsley had restored some of her faith in herself and she now loved the fact that there was a mix of patient problems that she had to help solve, even if it meant that she was on call one Saturday morning a month and two evenings a week, because social care issues didn't always fit neatly into office hours.

She'd stayed at Ronnie's the previous night because she'd been on call that morning and had promised Charles faithfully that she would show up in the afternoon if she possibly could, patients allowing, even though she didn't have very much to do with the army side of his life, she tended to avoid it most of the time. Now, as she searched the crowd for him, she had the most horrendous sense of deja vue as she spotted him with a very tall, slim, fair and pretty girl in army fatigues, Miranda, her hand on his arm, as they stood together in a group of people who all threw their heads back and roared with laughter about something. Molly stood there dithering for a minute as to whether she should just leave, or whether she should go over and join them when she saw him say something to Miranda and pat her arm, another taste of deja vue, as he turned and strode in her direction, grinning widely when he caught sight of her in the crowd. The rush of jealousy which had made her want to go over and slap Miranda's hand off his arm had told her something that she'd really known for months, that she needed to accept the fact that the time had come to stop playing silly buggers and to do what she should have done months ago.

"Hello beautiful" He bent down and kissed her cheek "Have you come to rescue me?"

"You didn't look much like you needed rescuing to me; you looked like you was having a nice time"

"Couldn't possibly have a nice time without you, you know that"

"Liar"

"I was just being polite"

"Yeah, I know, and enjoying Miranda perving on you"

"I was not and she was not"

"I don't know about that, that's what it looked like to me"

She patted the back of her hair, making sure that her plait hadn't started to come loose and that it was still tightly fastened at the bottom, she'd been growing her hair ever since they'd got back together and it was finally long enough to put up in a French plait without falling out halfway through the day, reminding him even more of the Molly he'd fallen in love with over five years ago.

"Charles, I've been thinking"

"Christ that sounds bloody dangerous"

"Ha ha, very funny, bloody hilarious"

"I thought so" He stopped walking and looked at her expectantly "So what have you been thinking about, gorgeous?"

"That maybe it's time to share"

He stared at her straight faced as she half smiled at him, biting her bottom lip, feeling and looking slightly anxious in case he no longer wanted her to move in with him. Then, with his biggest smile spreading across his face he bit his own bottom lip.

"You mean, at long bloody last you're going to move in? Going to live with me full time?"

"Nah, I thought I'd let you share my student debts, help me pay them off" She giggled "Of course I'm saying I want to move in with you, if you still want me to. What do you think?"

"I'll have to charge you rent"

"Shit, it better not be very much, I work for Social Services and I got debts, so I'm bloody poor, me" She giggled, hoping she'd got it right and that he was actually joking.

"Well, I was thinking about some sort of payment in kind"

"Were you? now there's a bloody surprise"

He grinned as he picked her up and held her above his head, totally ignoring the crowds of people around them, and then let her down slowly until her face was level with his, although her feet were still way off the ground, and she put her arms round his neck as he kissed her, fairly circumspectly bearing in mind their audience, then whispered 'let's go home'.

-OG-

 **Author's notes: Happy endings a speciality! Am toying with what I'm going to do next but I'm addicted so it probably won't be long before I'm back. Hope you enjoyed this, please review for me.**


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